Clause 11
Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [Lords]
12:15 pm
Jeremy Browne (Shadow Chief Secretary To the Treasury, Treasury; Taunton, Liberal Democrat)
The hon. Gentleman raises a reasonable point. There is a useful debate to be had over how much effort the financial institution should make. Many people take the view that the effort should match the size of the deposit in the account. The process may become not self-defeating but less obviously purposeful if it costs more to try to trace the account holder than the total value of the deposit. If the account held a higher amount of money, I would envisage the efforts going somewhat beyond writing to an account holder at an address at which he resided 15 years or more ago and having a website that he or she could access if they so wished.
There will be several ways in which the banks go about trying to contact longstanding customers who have not been in recent contact. The essential point is that at the moment the banks have insufficient incentive to try to reconnect the dormant bank account holder with his or her dormant bank account and that the Bill does not give them any great incentive to do so. After all, what does the bank stand to gain from tracking down a person who has not been in contact for 15 years or more? Very little. I fear that the bank will do the bare minimum in order to be seen to be doing the right thing and that that will not be good enough in the interests of the individual account holder. I would be pleased if the Minister could assure me that greater and more strenuous efforts will be made.