City told to repay £1bn of customers' money

The City was today urged to hand back more than £1 billion of customers’ money lying in dormant accounts.

Funds deposited in banks, building societies and stocks and shares decades ago should either be returned to their rightful owners or given to charity, financial experts said.

Nick O’Donohoe, chair of the Independent Dormant Assets Commission, said: “Most of the assets we’re talking about are managed by insurance companies and investment management companies and obviously the lion’s share is located in London.”

He is urging companies to “go look for” untouched accounts. “We are talking about individual accounts opened up years ago. People die or move house and forget about them.”

The Government set up the commission in December 2015 to see if their original scheme, which brought in £365 million for charity from dormant bank and building society accounts, could be extended to cover insurance, stocks and shares and pensions.

Mr O’Donohoe’s report today concluded the expanded scheme could raise £2 billion for charities, with £1 billion of that coming from London companies alone. He also recommended that customers should continue to be able to reclaim lost assets at any time.