The association Social Entrepreneurship Network Germany (Send) demands that in the future funds from unclaimed accounts be invested in a social fund. This emerges from a paper of the network.
According to this could be up to nine billion euros in this country on so-called dormant bankruptcies. These are accounts where banks have lost customer contact because, for example, their owners have died and the heirs do not know about the accounts. So far, the funds are falling to the banks after 30 years.
The network of social entrepreneurs, however, wants these unused funds to be invested. This is already the case in other countries.
In the UK, since 2008, banks have been transferring the money of such accounts to a fund when no one has reported for 15 years. Forty percent of this money is invested in low-risk, such as government bonds, in case there should still be heirs who register claims. The remaining 60 percent goes to a fund that is used for charitable purposes, for example, social enterprises are built.
The Send network is looking for a similar model: the state promotional bank Kfw should keep a register of migrants in the future that will enable the heirs to search. After a period of ten years, the money should automatically flow to the social impact fund to be established.
The Federal Ministry of Finance informed on demand of the "Handelsblatt" that one has the topic dormant accounts closely in view. However, there are currently no plans to introduce a legal regulation. In addition, there are many succession issues as well as privacy issues that need to be clarified beforehand, if you want to bring a use of dormant accounts on the way.
Germany is currently the only one of the G7 countries that has no statutory regulation for dormant accounts.
