Halifax hire Experian to trace dormant account holders

by Gill Montia

Story link: Halifax hire Experian to trace dormant account holders

Halifax will be the first UK bank to make use of Experian’s new Unclaimed Assets Register, which can help to locate the holders of dormant accounts.

Earlier this year members of the HBOS group including Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Birmingham Midshires, announced that they would be making renewed efforts to trace customers with accounts they may have forgotten about.

The accounts in question will have been inactive for at least 15 years and in many cases the contact details held by the bank are incorrect.

Across the entire HBOS group approximately 110,000 such accounts exist, holding funds of around £50; of this total, approximately £44 million is held in Halifax accounts.

According to Mike Regnier, head of savings at HBOS, the new service offered by Experian will allow the bank to locate the owners of far more accounts than could have been achieve through current methods of enquiry.

It is to be expected that a large number of the accounts in question have become dormant because the account holders are deceased but for those benefiting from the renewed efforts being made by Halifax, no charges will be made.