National Savings and Investments (NS&I) says it will begin contacting bereaved families next week following a long-running issue in tracing customers’ accounts after they die. The bank confirmed that affected estates are owed £367 million, according to reporting on the scale of the problem. NS&I’s interim chief executive says the issue “should never have happened,” and the bank is now moving into a payments phase for estates that should have received savings but were not located in time.
NS&I also states that payments will be made over several months. The process is expected to run into 2026 for many cases, with the overall payments expected to conclude in the first half of 2027. The move follows leadership changes in March, when NS&I’s chief executive was forced out after the tracing failures were revealed. Across sources, NS&I is described as taking steps to identify impacted estates and process claims and payments, with families being contacted directly as the bank works through the outstanding accounts.
