Unless you have been granted guardianship, a power of attorney or probate rights over your missing loved ones affairs, you do not have any legal rights to access or give instructions to others in respect of their financial affairs.

This means that a financial institution – for example, such as a Bank, retail wealth management firm, retail broker – does not have any legal obligation or duty to provide you with any information on the missing persons’ account(s) or to accept any instructions or requests in relation to those accounts (i.e. freeze outgoing payments, stop fees, etc).

Although you may not have any formal legal rights, some financial institutions are prepared to provide assistance in respect of a missing persons’ account(s). We know that every situation is personal, and that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, but we have set out some steps you may want to consider when dealing with your loved ones’ financial affairs.

Different financial institutions have different approaches to dealing with missing persons’ accounts, and your own circumstances may determine how they can help you. Once you have been able to speak to the right person and explain your circumstances, you should be able to ask what level of assistance (if any) that financial institution can provide to you (e.g. can they give you information on the accounts, stop outgoing payments, etc).

Please read our additional Q&As below for further information on how to approach dealing with financial institutions and how much assistance you may be able to receive.

Financial institutions are typically regulated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Where this is the case, those institutions are required to have specific policies and procedures in place to deal with vulnerable customers (e.g. documents that tell the financial institution’s staff how they should treat a vulnerable customer, whether they should pass that customer over to a specialist team, etc).

Although you may not consider yourself as a vulnerable person, having a loved one go missing, especially if you shared finances, may mean that you can be considered as vulnerable under their policies, and so can be given more support.

Some financial institutions have dedicated support teams that provide assistance to vulnerable persons. We would recommend that you try to speak to these teams if possible.

In order to do so, when ringing a financial institutions’ general helpline for the first time, we would recommend asking to speak to their ‘vulnerable customers’ team, or if there is no such specific team, to someone at the financial institution that can find the most appropriate person to deal with your queries (e.g. you may ask to speak to a manager for the customer support team who may be better placed to assist).

We appreciate that it will be difficult discussing your love ones’ financial affairs, particularly to strangers. In order to avoid having to explain your circumstances on each occasion you contact a financial institution, we would recommend requesting that one person at the financial institution deals specifically with your case going forwards (to the extent possible). In order to assist with this, it may be helpful to ask for a team members’ name, contact details and their contact hours so that you can quickly be redirected to that individual when contacting the company at a later date.

Financial institutions should seek to accommodate these types of requests as part of their vulnerable persons’ policies and procedures.

We appreciate that everyone’s situations will be different, and that you may have different concerns or worries related to your loved ones’ financial affairs, particularly if they are shared with yours.

Financial institutions will have their own policies and procedures for dealing with customer queries and requests. We have set out some key information that you may wish to tell the financial institution, which may help you to navigate their policies and procedures as best as possible, in order to get the right assistance that you need:

• The details for the relevant account(s) – g. the name(s) on the account, and if possible, any other account details – i.e. account number, sort code, any ID or reference numbers. You may be able to find this information on old bank statements. The financial institution will typically also want to confirm the account holder(s) date of birth and address to ensure that they have the right account;
• Information on the missing person and any factual evidence that helps to support this – e.g. set out that the relevant person is missing and any written confirmations you have received from the police (or other authority). The financial institution may want to see this confirmation before providing any further assistance/information, if so you may need to call back them back once they have reviewed this information.
• Who you are, and your relationship to the account holder;
• The reason for the call – e.g. try to identify exactly what you need from the financial institution, such as:
  • do you need to know information about the account? (i.e. how much money is in the account, what outgoing payments are being made, etc); or
  • do you want the financial institution to take action on the account (i.e. stop money from being paid out, help transfer money into the account).
  • Where possible, try to outline to the financial institution why you need them to take the course of action you have requested (e.g. you need information on the account in order to know whether the mortgage has been paid/the amount, you want to stop outgoing payments to preserve the money in the account, etc) and the impact if they are not able to assist.

As set out above, unfortunately without a guardianship order, power of attorney or probate rights, financial institutions do not have to act on your requests, and may say that they cannot provide you with any information for data protection or confidentiality reasons.

However, we know that some financial institutions can help with some requests, and once you have outlined the above, you should ask them to clarify how they can help (even if they cannot specifically assist with your initial request).

For example, if the financial institution is not prepared to stop outgoing direct debit payments on an account, they may be able to inform you as to where these payments are being made so that you can contact those companies directly to try and stop these payments.

Financial Institutions will typically not provide information or discuss details relating to their customers with another person unless that person has a legal right to do so (i.e. through a guardianship order, power or attorney or grant of probate).

Although this is typically the case, we know that some financial institutions are prepared to provide assistance in respect of a missing persons’ account. In order to help, these financial institutions will need to see some form of official evidence that the person is missing (e.g. a letter from the police confirming that they are investigating the disappearance).

If you are visiting the financial institution in person to discuss your loved ones’ account, we would recommend bringing this letter along with you. If you are contacting them by phone or online, you may want to try and get an electronic version of this letter that you can email to the financial institution.

Financial institutions typically have a legal duty to keep customers’ information about themselves and their accounts confidential. However, depending on the relevant circumstances, financial institutions may be able to be flexible and take the view that they can share some information with you about your loved ones’ account.

Financial institutions typically have different ways of assisting vulnerable customers. Although you may not feel like you are a vulnerable customer, you should explain to the financial institution why you need information on the missing persons’ bank account, and the impact it may have on them, you and/or others if you are not able to get this information.

If the financial institution says that they cannot provide you with any information on the account, you may want to ask to speak to their vulnerable customers’ team. It may also be worth reminding  the financial institution of the FCA guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers, which states that financial institutions may be able to share information with a third party in emergencies.

The FCA’s guidance applies to financial institutions and states that they should consider whether they can disclose information to a third party (such as you) where the account holder needs help or support. For example, the FCA guidance states that financial institutions may allow a third party to pay an emergency bill to prevent their customer from going into debt or let a third party negotiate with a lender on the customer’s behalf. These actions would involve providing some information to a third party (such as you) on the missing persons’ account.

Financial institutions are only legally permitted to take instructions from their customer (i.e. the account holder) or persons with the legal right to act on their behalf (i.e. under a guardianship order, power of attorney or probate).

This means that they do not have a legal obligation to accept any request from a third party (such as you) to stop any direct debits, freeze their account or transfer any money in or out of the account.

However, financial institutions may have different policies and procedures for assisting vulnerable customers. Although you may not feel like you are a vulnerable customer, you should explain to the financial institution why you may need them to help take action in respect of the missing persons’ bank account (i.e. stop outgoing payments), and set out the impact it may have on them, you and/or others if they are not able to help.

If the financial institution says that they cannot take this action, you may want to ask to speak to their vulnerable customers’ team. It may also be worth reminding the financial institution of the FCA’s guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers, which states that financial institutions may be able to undertake certain limited actions for their account holder in an emergency (following a request from a friend/family member).

The FCA’s guidance applies to financial institutions and states that they should consider whether they can take action to help or support their account holder in an emergency situation. For example, the FCA guidance states that financial institutions may freeze accounts where there are concerns over fraudulent activity. As such, it may also be possible for a financial institution to prevent money from leaving the person’s account.

Financial institutions are only legally permitted to take instructions from their customer (i.e. the account holder) or persons with the legal right to act on their behalf (i.e. under a guardianship order, power of attorney or probate).

This means that they do not have a legal obligation to accept any request from a third party (such as you) to move money out of the missing persons’ account.

Although some financial institutions are prepared to provide assistance in respect of a missing persons’ account, and will have different approaches for vulnerable customers, financial institutions do not typically accept any request to transfer money from the missing persons’ account to you/someone else.

Financial institutions are only legally permitted to take instructions from their customer (i.e. the account holder) or persons with the legal right to act on their behalf (i.e. under a guardianship order, power of attorney or probate).

Although some financial institutions are prepared to provide assistance in respect of a missing persons’ account, and will have different approaches for vulnerable customers, financial institutions will not typically accept any request to close the missing persons’ account.

You may however be able to ask the financial institution to freeze their account (see ‘Can I freeze or stop money from leaving the missing persons’ account(s)?’ above).

If you know the account holders details, you will still be able to move money into the missing person’s account (e.g. via a bank transfer).

However, if you require information on the person’s outgoings from their account in order to determine how much you would need to transfer, please see the guidance above on ‘Can a financial institution provide me with information on the missing person’s account(s) (e.g.  Information on the account balance / outgoing payments)?’