Ten pledges from banks to personal customers on dormant bank accounts

13/06/2006

page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | >> | last | all

1. If you have a personal savings or current account and there have been no transactions on it, other than those transactions initiated by the bank (such as interest and charges), for a set period (usually at least a year), and the bank haven't heard from you during that time.

The bank will write to you at least once at the last address held (unless mail has previously been returned from there) to ask if you want to keep the account open.

2. If your reply is that you want to keep your account open, the bank will continue to treat your account as ‘live', sending you statements and other correspondence in the normal way.

3. If the bank receives no reply after a set period - usually between six weeks and three months - your account may be considered ‘dormant' and the bank will treat your account differently from a ‘live' account. There are good reasons for this, which can protect you:

it can stop fraud - for example it is not good practice to send out statements, chequebooks and other material to an out-of-date address, where someone other than you could try to access the account.