UNCLAIMED MONEY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 297, 15 December 1936, Page 6

UNCLAIMED MONEY.

FORGETFUL DEPOSITORS IN

THE BANKS

Methods of dealing with money deposited in banks and then apparently forgotten by the depositors differ very widely. In this country such accounts are kept alive for a quarter of a century, though dormant for two decades, and are then paid into the Consolidated Fund. The accounts simply went 011 accumulating up till 10,'i2, when the twenty-five-year limit was imposed, and its adoption led to the wiping out of eighty thousand accounts in one fell swoop. Since then accounts have l>een closed and transferred to the Treasury as they have matured. In Australia the names of depositors in the Commonwealth Savings Bank who have not operated 011 their accounts for a period of six years are published in the "Gazette" and later the balances go into the Treasury.^

There is no law to compel other savings banks and trading banks in Australia to publish any information about unclaimed money standing in their books to the credit of customers or depositors. Some of these banks have been operating in Australia for many decades, and it is reasonable to suppose that the unclaimed money in their possession amounts in the aggregate to a fairly large sum. The usual practice of banks is to transfer such unclaimed balances to profit and loss account; but every bank keeps a record of the names of the accounts from which unclaimed balances have been transferred, and a 'genuine claim to any of these balances would be honoured by the bank.

Disclosures in England. Some interesting evidence regarding unclaimed money in tlie possession of banks in England was given in ?!)!!), wlien a Select Committee was appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into the matter, in connection, with a private member's bill to compel banks to disclose periodically the unclaimed balances in their possession, and to hand over the money to the Public Trustee.

Sir Biien Cockayne, governor of the Bank of England, in giving evidence before this Select Committee, said that the total amount of dormant balances (i.e., money to the credit of accounts which had not been operated on for a period of six years or more) in the Batik of England was £115,000. The owners of about £40,000 of this total could be traced. Some of the other unclaimed balances dated back to 1720.

Jn the report which the Select Committee presented to the House of Commons it was stated that Sir Walter Leaf, chairman of the J institute of Bankers, had obtained a return from every bank in the United Kingdom with the exception of the Bank of England and the foreign banks, and these returns showed that the total sum standing to the credit of current accounts which had been dormant for six years or upwards was £2,220,020, and that the dormant deposit accounts totalled £5,787,050. Of the gross total of . £8,008,585 it was estimated by Sir Walter Leaf "that £5,103,415 will in the ordinary course be the subject of operations, either by way of increase or diminution, and cannot therefore be regarded os permanently dormant." This left a balance of £2,840,170 belonging to untraceable persons. No Unclaimed Fortunes. While on the one hand there arc people who forget all about small sums of money standing to their credit in banks, there are jthers who imagine that the banks arc ill possession of large sums belonging to them ivhicli were deposited by their deceased relatives: Sir Bricn Cockayne mentioned, in the •ourse of his evidence before the Select Comnittee, that the Bank of England constantly •eceived claims from persons in the United States and other countries for fabulous sums laid to be standing to the credit of deceased relatives. On examination these claims were invariably discovered to be baseless.

Another English institution which is said by people who are under the delusion that they are heirs to vast fortunes to have possesion of these fortunes is tlie Chancery Court, Scattered about Australia and every other part of the Empire are people who believe that the Chancery Court has the control of enormous estates to which they are the rightful heirs. visionaries have persuaded themselves that some distant relative who died about a hundred years ago left a large fortune, and as 110 one came forward to claim it at the time the court took possession of it for the purpose of administering tlie estate. The fortune bus pone 011 accumulating, and in most cases has swollen into millions of pounds, owing to the increased value of the landed property included in the estates. Some of the heirs to these fabulous fortunes realise the utter impossibility of producing before the Chancery Court proof of the genuineness of their claims in the form of birth and marriage certificates, and wills of their ancestors for several generations back and similar documents regarding members of other branches of the family tree. But others never give up vain hope.

I At regular intervals of three years tlie Supreme Court Pay Office in London issues' an official list of all funds amounting to £50 and over which are in the possession of the Chancery Court and other courts and have been dormant for a period of fifteen years or more, except for the continuous investment of the funds, or placing additional dividends on deposit. A study of this list will dispel the delusion that there are any vast fortunes in the possession of the Chancery Court. The list contains details of more" than 4000 accounts in the hands of the court, and the total sum. represented by these 'accounts is less than £2,000,000. More than half of the accounts do not exceed £1;>0 in value, and only about 250 exceed £1000.