Savers told to claim 'lost' £435m

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Attempts are being made to reunite savers with £435m of unclaimed money that has been sitting in dormant accounts for years.

National Savings and Investments (NS&I) - which is backed by the Treasury - has launched an advertising campaign to help people trace their cash.

Some of the money dates back to 1861 but a dormant account is any one that has been ignored for at least 15 years.

One investor has had £184,000 sitting in an account since at least 1990.

The last contact he had with NS&I about his investment account was from an address in Manchester.

'Dusty ledgers'

The campaign has been launched as efforts are stepped up among banks and building societies to help people trace dormant accounts.

But NS&I - formerly known as National Savings - is not part of government plans to use unclaimed money from abandoned bank accounts to fund youth and community projects.

The scheme is part of a 10-year strategy for young people.

MONEY MONEY MONEY Largest abandoned account - £184,000Average amount in dormant investment accounts - £529Number of investment accounts with more than £1,000 - 31,000Average amount in dormant ordinary accounts - £3.86Number of ordinary accounts with more than £1,000 - 22,000Tracing service application forms from www.nsandi.com or 0845 964 5000

That money will be used by the government, but can still be claimed at any time by customers who still legally own the cash.

NS&I said any account with more than £1 in it will still be gathering interest.

Some accounts are so old employees have to manually calculate the interest and enter the figures into "dusty old ledgers", their spokesman said.

There is no time limit on making a claim.

The group said the most common reason people lost track of their accounts was moving house and not passing on their new address.

Other money had gone untouched because people had died and their executors had not realised they had an account.

Between April and June 2007 NS&I received 196 pre-1971 passbooks which had to be converted to decimal, the oldest of which was opened in 1924.

Application forms for the tracing service are available at www.nsandi.com or by calling 0845 964 5000.

The British Bankers' Association (BBA) and Building Societies' Association (BSA) also provide free tracing services for forgotten funds.

Details can be found through the BBA website or by calling 020 7216 8909, and details about the BSA scheme can be found at www.bsa.org.uk.