Many financial organisations maintain they are undertaking regular tracing of gone away or lost customers, but in most cases this means employing a third party who has their own list of names and addresses who provide matches with the information provided from the financial services company. This is not tracing – this is just playing snap with customers names and addresses.

This note sets out how Vestigium Services Limited (‘Vestigium’) is making real inroads into the issue of Gone Away Customers and provides a Solution for the Financial Services sector (‘the Industry’).

De-bunking some of the myths around Financial Services (‘FS’) efforts to maintain accurate customer data and de-bunking some of the myths around efforts by FS administration departments to locate the Executors and Next of Kin of dead customers. This paper has been written for the benefit of Non-Executive Directors of FS or Environment, Social and Governance (’ESG’) Committees or Sustainability Committees who may be interested in understanding what their organisation is doing to maintain accurate customer data, keep in contact with the potentially vulnerable customer and engaging with the Executors/ next of kin of Dead Customers. It should help these Directors ask the right questions of their Executive teams and gain a clearer understanding of their responses.

The focus of financial investments is no longer solely on returns, as investors increasingly seek out investment opportunities that also deliver positive social and environmental impact.

Financial Institutions need to know who their customers are for credit checks and ensuring their money is in the correct fund. Reengaging with lost customers not only helps to minimise the claims to the Central Reclaim Fund, it is also a regulatory requirement. In this blog, we explore some of the numerous benefits that a concerted effort to re-engage with lost customers can have on the customers and financial institutions alike.

In January 2021 the UK Government elected to expand the Dormant Assets Scheme, a program where unclaimed financial assets are put towards social and environmental initiatives. However, your customers will still be able to claim their assets in full at any time. See the article for more...

Bad data fields in your customer records can lead to a plethora of issues. Bad data isn't just limited to incorrect or historic addresses. It can also be erroneous dates of birth, or incorrect names. Holding this information for your customers can mean that customers are missed by automated screening processes. What does this mean for your organisation? And, more importantly, how can you resolve this?

In late 2019, our CEO, Paul Aggett, was asked to partake in the recording of a Podcast for Link Group's Governance 360 series. The podcasts talks broadly about lost assets, the benefits of a concerted effort to reduce dormant assets accross the finacial services industry, and about Vestigium Services as a business too.

At Vestigium, we welcomed HM Treasury's (HMT) and Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sports (DDCMS) consultation on expanding the dormant asset scheme. As the document states in the forward: "Dormant assets remain the rightful property of their owners, and the scheme guarantees their right to reclaim the amount owed to them at any time. This underpins the entire scheme, and is crucial to ensuring that everyone—from consumers to firms—trusts and supports it."

The scale of the UK’s lost pensions mountain is exposed by latest research carried out by the Pensions Policy Institute on behalf of the ABI. In the largest study yet on the subject, the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) surveyed firms representing about 50% of the private defined contribution pensions market. From this PPI found 800,000 lost pensions worth an estimated £9.7 billion. It estimates that, if scaled up to the whole market, there are collectively around 1.6 million pots worth £19.4 billion unclaimed – the equivalent of nearly £13,000 per pot.

Dormant assets should not exist, but they do. Individuals should never lose track of their assets, but they do. Companies should not have out-of-date contact details for their customers, but they do. As a result, there is a significant amount of money in our economy which is unclaimed or lost. Public interest dictates that money ordinarily due to customers should not unduly benefit companies. We should all do whatever we can to minimise dormancy occurring in the first place, but if it does occur, the owners should be found and, if that is not possible, society should benefit. The Government Commissioned a Report into Dormant Assets in 2017, to investigate what can be done.