The search is on for the investors who lost [pound]15bn

Banks and building societies are expected to become more proactive in their efforts to hunt down the owners of "dormant" funds as pressure is put on them to help forgotten customers.

The Unclaimed Assets Bill was included by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in last week's list of the Government's proposed legislation. It will mean banks and building societies will soon have to transfer unclaimed assets to charities and the voluntary sector to be "reinvested in society".

Fifteen "untouched" years must have passed before funds can be channelled elsewhere, and the original owners will be able to reclaim their assets if they manage to track them down at a future date.

So far, the job of tracing the owners of dormant funds has been left mainly to professional bodies representing the financial services industry, rather than to individual banks. That situation could soon change with the promotion of tracking services - usually free - to the public, as well as banks starting to offer their own services.

The Halifax last week announced it had appointed the credit check company Experian to use its large database to track down Halifax customers.

"In the case of about 75 per cent of dormant accounts, we have the wrong address," says a spokesman. "Using the [Experian] database should help us."

The banking group, which includes Bank of Scotland and Birmingham Midshires, says it has roughly [pound]50m in accounts untouched for 15 years - belonging to 110,000 people. One customer was recently reunited with [pound]100,000.

Halifax is so far the only high-street bank to take a more proactive approach to dormant accounts, but it is expected that others will follow. The Building Societies Association, British Bankers' Association and National Savings & Investments (NS&I, the government savings body, also responsible for premium bonds) have already held talks, prompted by the former Chief Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Ed Balls, who urged them to work more closely to encourage customers to reclaim their funds.

In April, the Commission on Unclaimed Assets, a government- sponsored body set up in 2005 to investigate dormant accounts, recommended that "financial institutions use more proactive means to locate customers with whom they have lost touch".

The latest figures from the Unclaimed Assets Register, a commercial organ-isation that uses the Experian database and charges [pound]18 per search, estimates that the total value of lost assets in the UK is [pound]15.3bn. This figure has inched up slowly over the past few years (see graphic above).

It might seem surprising that such huge sums are lying unclaimed but it's easy for individuals to lose track of assets. The most common reason is failure to notify financial institutions of a change of address. Many other accounts are forgotten when someone dies - for example, where grandparents have been saving for grandchildren but have neglected to tell their own children of the existence of these savings.

Banks and other financial institutions have benefited from a lack of action, as funds left with them untouched simply bolster their balance sheet. Among those now reviewing forgotten assets is the recently de-mutualised Standard Life, which said last week it was aware it needed to do more in this area. At the moment, the company has 80.6 million unclaimed shares outstanding - around 3.7 per cent of its total investments - belonging to 217,326 shareholders and worth [pound]270m.

NS&I is another institution sitting on millions of pounds of others' money. Last month, on the 50th anniversary of the first premium bonds, a record [pound]28m in prizes remained unclaimed. NS&I is soon to launch a summer promotion for its tracing service.

Further browsing To trace your forgotten funds, log on to www.uar.co.uk/find_assets_diy.htm. For more tips on making the most of your money, go to www.independent.co.uk/money

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