Halifax campaigns to give savers their money

Halifax, the largest savings institution in the UK, has launched a campaign to reunite its customers with about £44 million in dormant savings and bank accounts. The government classes accounts that have been out of use for 15 years or more as dormant. This may happen when a customer moves house and fails to notify the financial institution of the new address. Money in dormant accounts remains the property of the customers.

According to Halifax, around 75 per cent of the dormant accounts held by their customers have balances under £100, and most of these are savings accounts. The £44 million in dormant accounts is 0.03 per cent of the retail banking and savings balances held by HBOS, which total £133 billion.

Most of the old and unused accounts held by Halifax customers are in London, where 24 per cent of these accounts are held, with a total of £15.5 million being unclaimed by Londoners. Another 18 per cent are in the North of England.

Halifax plans to send mailings to customers with dormant accounts as part of a campaign to give people back their cash. The campaign will also include national and regional advertising, claim forms in Halifax and Bank of Scotland branches and a website dedicated to reclaiming accounts. Accounts can be reactivated and customers will receive interest on their balance.

Halifax is also using search agents to find customers with balances which are above £1,000. This cost will be borne by Halifax. Halifax has reunited customers with cash in dormant accounts before, contacting 18 million customers when converting to a plc in 1997.

HBOS head of savings, Mike Regnier, said: ‘Our job is to reunite as many of our customers as is possible with their cash. We are using every means at our disposal to do so – mailings, advertising and the internet. We are also employing search agents where appropriate. We expect that the Government will launch its dormant account scheme the next few years.  We are launching our reunification campaign today so that we have as much time as possible to get the cash back to its owners.’