Banks join taskforce to reunite young people with £1.6bn unclaimed savings

Nationwide and HSBC are among banks and building societies joining forces with the Government to try to reunite young people with £1.6 billion worth of forgotten child trust fund savings.

The Government announced the new taskforce after finding that more than 750,000 accounts are unclaimed, holding £2,200 on average.

Child trust fund providers also including Coutts, The Share Foundation, Sheffield Mutual, Forester, One Family, Pilling, The Coventry, Unity Mutual and Healthy Investments have become members.

The taskforce aims to bring providers together to improve ways of tracing young people and engaging with them to encourage claiming their matured accounts.

Economic Secretary to the Treasury Rachel Blake said: “Too many young people are missing out simply because they are not aware of where their child trust fund is or how to access it.

“We are acting to fix that by bringing government and industry together – improving coordination and making it easier for people to find and claim what’s rightfully theirs.”

It builds on action from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) which has said it will be writing to 21-year-olds whose accounts remain unclaimed to make them aware they have a child trust fund (CTF).

The awareness drive relates to CTFs which are long-term, tax-free savings accounts which were set up for children born between September 1 2002 and January 2 2011.

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Around 6.3 million were set up, predominantly by parents and guardians, with the remainder established by HMRC.

The savings accounts are not held by government but in banks, building societies or other savings providers.

Many children received around £250 each from the government at the time their CTF was started, while those from low-income families or in local authority care may have received an additional £250.

Accounts can go unclaimed for a number of reasons such as difficultly locating them, people forgetting they have them, or a decision to leave the funds invested.

People can locate their CTFs through the free “find my child trust fund” service on gov.uk.