Asset reunification using investigation technology
Jon Box
Most of us will accrue a large number of accounts, policies and other financial products over our lifetimes. Despite our best efforts to manage our investments and look after our finances, it’s surprisingly common for financial assets to become lost, forgotten or unclaimed.
What is asset reunification?
Asset reunification reconnects lost or forgotten assets with their rightful owners. It’s an important practice in the pensions, banking and insurance industries where billions of pounds are left unclaimed in dormant accounts.
The types of assets that can be traced include pensions, bank accounts, savings accounts, stocks, bonds, dividends, insurance policies, and uncashed cheques.
Assets may be unclaimed for many reasons; it's usually due to changes in personal circumstances, such as a change of address. The account holder may simply forget to tell the organisation about the change and any correspondence from the company ends up going to the wrong address. Other reasons for inactive accounts include the death of the account holder or forgotten accounts. It’s important to remember that however long the account has been dormant, the money still belongs to that account holder, or their beneficiaries.
The objective of asset reunification is to trace and recover these assets and return them to the individuals or companies who rightfully own them.
“Asset reunification reconnects lost or forgotten assets with their rightful owners. It’s an important practice in the pensions, banking and insurance industries where billions of pounds are left unclaimed in dormant accounts.”
Asset reunification and tracing pensions
Asset reunification is particularly important in the pensions industry. It’s easy for individuals to lose track of the various pension schemes they’ve contributed to over the years, especially if they have changed job several times.
Asset reunification helps to identify where these individuals have moved to and allows the pension company to re-engage with their customer. This means customers can access and benefit from all the retirement funds they’ve accumulated over their working lives.
What are the benefits of asset reunification?
Asset reunification offers significant benefits for everyone involved - individuals, companies, and our wider society. Of course, there’s an immediate financial benefit for the owner of an asset, however, a transparent asset reunification process also fosters trust between financial services and their customers.
By proactively locating and notifying owners of unclaimed assets, financial services and other sectors not only uphold their legal duties but also reinforce their commitment to customer care and financial integrity.
Benefits for individuals
For individuals, the primary benefit is the recovery of lost or forgotten financial assets. Anyone who is reunited with a long lost pension or a savings account they’d lost track of, can find their financial situation and security significantly improved. With pension tracing, for example, it could even mean a customer can retire earlier than they had expected.
Asset reunification can also serve as a useful reminder for individuals to keep better track of their investments, promoting better management of personal finances.
Benefits for companies
Having an asset reunification process in place ensures financial services comply with their legal and regulatory obligations, avoiding penalties for non-compliance. Better management of dormant or unclaimed accounts also reduces administrative costs.
The company’s reputation is also enhanced by demonstrating a commitment to ethical practices and customer service. When a business actively works to locate and return assets to their rightful owners, they build brand trust and loyalty. A positive reputation for proactive asset reunification can improve customer relations and help a financial service provider stand out among industry peers.
Benefits for society
Asset reunification benefits society as a whole by promoting financial fairness, reducing economic inefficiencies and helping to reduce fraud.
By ensuring everyone receives what they are entitled to, asset reunification fosters a sense of justice and integrity within the financial services sector, which benefits the entire community. Of course, when unclaimed assets are returned to their rightful owners, these funds can be reinvested, supporting growth and development in the wider economy.
A robust asset reunification process also helps to prevent fraud and misuse of dormant accounts, contributing to a more secure and trustworthy financial system.
360-degree discovery for asset reunification with GBG Investigate
Key stages in asset reunification
Asset reunification requires a series of steps aimed at identifying, locating, and returning unclaimed or forgotten assets to their rightful owners:
1. Identification
Financial services identify inactive accounts through regular audits and system monitoring. They typically look for ‘gone away’ customers, dormant accounts and uncashed cheques.
2. Tracing owners
When an unclaimed asset is identified, the next step is to trace the owner. This involves searching databases and resources, such as public records, credit reports, and social media. Specialist tracing agencies and software are available to help trace owners.
3. Verification
After locating the likely owner, financial services must verify their identity and their entitlement to the asset. To do this, the business will need proof of identity, account statements or other relevant records.
4. Notification
Once the owner is verified, they’re notified about the unclaimed assets. This notification can be by mail, email, phone call or public notices, depending on available contact information.
5. Reunification
Finally, the asset is returned to the rightful owner. This could involve issuing payments, transferring accounts, or providing instructions about how to reclaim the asset.
“Asset reunification is particularly important in the pensions industry. It’s easy for individuals to lose track of the various pension schemes they’ve contributed to over the years.”
Tracing challenges for asset reunification
One of the major challenges in asset reunification is making sure the data you’re using is accurate and complete. Outdated or inaccurate information can make the process of tracing and verifying owners difficult. If the owner has moved, changed their name, or passed away, the tracing process will be further complicated by missing contact information.
Navigating privacy regulations and ensuring compliance with data protection laws can be another significant pain point. Businesses must balance the need to trace individuals with the obligation to protect personal information.
Once found, verifying the identity of individuals and their entitlement to assets can be complex and time-consuming. The verification process may require crosschecking against several sources and documents. Where the amounts are small, individuals may choose not to engage in the reunification process, leading to wasted time and resources.
All of this can make asset reunification resource-intensive, requiring significant time and effort from companies. To overcome these challenges, some companies turn to specialist tracing agencies to manage the whole process, which can result in a substantial financial investment.
Tracing technology for asset reunification
The right technology can overcome the challenges of asset reunification, streamlining processes, enhancing accuracy and improving efficiency.
Data management
Advanced data management systems help businesses maintain centralised, comprehensive records of assets and owners. These systems facilitate easy access to and retrieval of information, making it easier to identify dormant or unclaimed assets.
Management can include data cleansing tools to improve the integrity of data, identifying and correcting inaccuracies, removing duplicate entries and standardising data formats. Clean data reduces errors and improves tracing accuracy and discovery of the rightful owner.
Data enrichment adds information from external sources to enhance existing records. This helps locate owners by using updated contact details, social media profiles and other relevant data. Enriched data provides a more current and complete picture of individuals, increasing the chances of successful reunification.
Tracing and linking data
Sophisticated algorithms and machine learning models can automate tracing processes, rapidly sifting vast amounts of data, identifying patterns and connections that might indicate the latest whereabouts of an asset owner.
Advanced data analytics and integration tools can link disparate data sets, identifying relationships and connections between discrete items of information. This is especially useful for the discovery of next of kin or beneficiaries if the owner is deceased or untraceable.
Real-time data processing and updating means that information remains current and accurate. Companies can quickly reflect changes in ownership, contact details and other relevant information. This reduces the time lag between identification and reunification.
Trace and reconnect customers to lost assets with GBG Investigate
Bulk processing and geolocation
Technology that enables bulk processing of large data volume speeds up the tracing process significantly. Automated tracing systems that manage multiple records simultaneously can identify unclaimed assets and owners much faster than manual tracing methods.
Geolocation and mapping technologies help pinpoint the physical locations of individuals, making it easier to track down owners who may have moved or relocated.
Security and compliance
Advanced encryption and security protocols protect sensitive data during the reunification process. This ensures businesses can maintain data protection compliance throughout.
Specialist tracing technology provides robust audit trails that document every step of the asset reunification process for complete transparency. This helps the business meet their regulatory requirements and ethical standards.
By using technology to streamline asset reunification, companies can make the process faster, more accurate and efficient. This not only benefits individuals by returning their assets but also helps companies fulfil their legal and ethical obligations.
“GBG Investigate brings together billions of data records from disparate specialist sources to create the UK's largest personal identifiable information database.”
GBG Investigate for asset reunification
GBG Investigate brings together billions of data records from disparate specialist sources to create the UK's largest personal identifiable information database.
By securely combining your own customer data with this comprehensive data source and powerful matching algorithms, GBG Investigate helps to trace the missing owners of dormant accounts and reconnect people to lost and forgotten assets.
Tracing customers
By merging and analysing your customer data with vast amounts of information in its own database, Investigate can quickly trace individuals and provide up-to-date contact details as well as identify relationships, such as next of kin.
This simple tracing process is supported by advanced data cleansing and enrichment to ensure accuracy. Automated tracing helps to streamline the process, ensuring assets are reunited with their rightful owners quickly and efficiently.
this comprehensive data source and powerful matching algorithms, GBG Investigate helps to trace the missing owners of dormant accounts and reconnect people to lost and forgotten assets.
Automated investigation
GBG Investigate offers a versatile approach to asset reunification with both automated services for large searches and visual link analysis for manual investigation.
Investigate’s bulk batch service processes large volumes of data efficiently. Companies can automate customer tracing and update contact information at scale – ideal for businesses that need to manage numerous asset reunification cases quickly and accurately.
For individual cases, Investigate’s smart graph visualisation displays data-linking analysis to help investigators follow the data trail, tracing and verifying complex connections. This ability to cast a wide net for high-volume processing or focus detailed investigations makes GBG Investigate a versatile ally in asset reunification.
Data compliant by design
GBG Investigate's data handling and management adheres to strict data privacy and protection regulations. Compliant by design, these robust security measures protect customer privacy and ensure businesses meet their legal and regulatory obligations
Customer data your business uploads to GBG Investigate will only be visible to users in your organisation or other businesses and users granted access by you. You can also limit access to certain data, ensuring that you remain in control and operate in full data compliance.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is asset reunification?
Asset reunification is the process of tracing and reconnecting the rightful owners of lost or forgotten financial assets with their property. The types of financial assets involved typically include, dormant pensions, bank accounts, savings accounts, stocks, bonds, dividends and insurance policies.
Can asset reunification help trace lost pensions?
Yes. Asset reunification is particularly important in the pensions industry. It’s all too easy to lose track pension products over the years, especially if your job and company pension has changed several times. Asset reunification helps pension providers trace and re-engage with policy holders, ensuring customers can access and benefit from all the funds accumulated over their working lives.
Is asset reunification the same as asset recovery?
No. Asset recovery refers to realising the value of unused assets through effective divestment or releasing excess inventory in the context of business liquidation. It can also refer to the recovery of stolen property where theft or fraud has taken place. Asset reunification is the process of reconnecting rightful owners to dormant financial assets.
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