The Centre for Financial Capability hosts the Dormant Assets Roundtable

29/09/22

Today, the Centre for Financial Capability hosted an industry-focused roundtable event, attended by 30 leading stakeholders including DCMS, TISA UK and GoHenry, to discuss the industry’s opinion of the dormant assets consultation and why it is important for a proportion of the unclaimed dormant asset monies to be used to fund financial education for children across the UK.

Following the passing of the Dormant Assets Act earlier this year, the Dormant Assets Scheme has been expanded to include assets from insurance, pensions, investment and wealth management, and securities and an additional £880 million of unclaimed assets will be released.  The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and the Government is now inviting organisations and individuals to contribute to the Dormant Assets Consultation which will inform the good causes the funds should be used for, which include youth, financial inclusion, social investment and community wealth funds.

For the past year, the Centre has been campaigning for a portion of these funds to be put towards sustainable financial education for primary school children. The charity engaged with parliamentarians in the House of Commons and House of Lords during the passing of the Dormant Asset Bill, many of whom were supportive of unlocked assets being used to in part fund financial education
programmes across the UK. 

Trustee of The Centre for Financial Capability Carol Knight said:

“It was fantastic to chair this important industry roundtable today on
behalf of The Centre and see the UK financial services sector come together to
unite behind the common good cause of financial education.

We are currently in a position where millions of primary-aged children do not
receive any financial education and the identified dormant assets set to be
released presents an opportune moment to ensure sustainable funding for the
delivery of primary school financial education across the UK. The link between
poor financial capability and unclaimed assets is intrinsic and has resulted in
the billions of stranded assets the Government find themselves with today. It
is therefore essential that Government consider industry’s calls for investment
in prevention and education, to ensure young people can live financially
independent adult lives”