Unclaimed Funds
Categories: Banking
When you were 13, your parents made you set up a bank account. You deposited $56.23 into the account and then promptly forgot about it. Now it’s 20 years later, and that money is still sitting in that account. It has become unclaimed funds.
The term refers to assets (like the cash in your childhood starter account) that exist, usually held by a bank or some other organization, but where the owner can't be found. Typically, the company makes some good-faith effort to find the owner (they send some letters to your last known address to find out if you want the cash in your abandoned account). Then, at a certain point, the assets are handed over to the government.
You can still claim them at that point. You just need to contact the right government authority and prove that you are, in fact, the person in question.
