Dormant cash – time to check if you’re sitting on a gold mine
News broke this week that £9bn in defunct and discontinued banknotes is still in circulation (or rather lost in circulation) in the UK today.
There’s also £87m in old £1 coins still unaccounted for; likely lost down drains and under floorboards from Land’s End to the Shetland Isles.
A couple of factoids worth noting are that defunct cash (for example, paper notes usurped by plastic ones) retain face value and can be exchanged for usable currency.
Then there’s the fascinating revelation that, for all we hear about cashless societies, cash was second only to debit cards as the UK’s most popular means of payment in 2022.
Fact nuggets aside, though, the £9bn in defunct bank notes offers a good excuse to talk about the obscene sums of unclaimed cash lying dead and dormant in Britain today. Did somebody say £77bn?
Money purgatory
Depending on which report you read, there may be anywhere between £15bn and that rather sensational figure of £77bn in unclaimed financial assets in the UK today.
The latter figure breaks down into just over a grand for every man woman and child in the land. If each lost pound was a gallon of water, 77bn gallons of water would fill 120,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Whatever the exact figure, it’s the sum total of old pension pots, dormant bank accounts, forgotten investments and policies. Unclaimed Lotto millions too.
We said in the intro that cash is still a prime payment instrument in the UK, but via means and methods of the digital world, you may be able to lay hands on what’s yours.
Digital recovery
Lost UK pension monies apparently total over £5bn but, no fear, the UK government’s Pension Tracing Service can reconnect you to any old pots you have.
Similarly, the Investment Association and the Association of Investment Companies can help you track down lost investments, funds and trusts.
Meanwhile, a team comprising UK Finance, the Building Societies Association and National Savings & Investments reckon there’s £850m sitting in dead bank accounts and their My Lost Account service could reunite you with yours.
A word on Lotto wins, you can claim via the Lottery itself but you’ve a six-month window to do so and, to state the obvious, you need your winning ticket.
Everything is possible
Even in an age where we’re largely taught to earn money, seek money, protect money and even worship money, it’s fascinating how so much of it is in purgatory.
It’s also fascinating how one can lose or forget hundreds or even thousands of pounds.
Then again, forgetfulness, divorce, distraction, attrition … life happens: you start a job, stick it a while, move on and fail to tell your pension provider. You open a savings account, lose interest (and the paperwork) and c’est la vie.
So it’s easier done than you’d think. Thankfully, clawing it back could be too.
Rise the train (and the sofa)
While it’s worth checking old hidey holes around the house for dusty, defunct cash, it’s definitely time to see if Britain’s ghost money train has something for you.
Your long-forgotten funds could be scattered somewhere on the UK’s vast financial landscape, so use the links above and let us know how you get on.
If you come up short then don’t worry – apparently £600m is lost down the back of UK sofas. At an average of £20 per household, you might at least cover pizza night.