Under the current scheme, if money has lain untouched in a bank account for at least 15 years and the bank or building society has been unable to establish contact with the owner, it can be transferred to a reclaim fund and then distributed to social or environmental initiatives across the UK.

Following a recent consultation, the Government has confirmed that it intends to expand the scheme to include assets from the insurance and pensions, investment and wealth management, and securities sectors.

To date, over £745m has been released through the scheme, including to help young people into work, offer affordable credit to families in financial difficulty, to address environmental issues and to mitigate the impact of the ongoing pandemic.

The Macfarlanes team providing assistance was led by financial services regulation partner Andrew Henderson, corporate and M&A partner Robert Boyle and senior corporate and M&A solicitor Dominic Sedghi.