The Prime Minister and Assistant Treasurer have announced plans to change the current unclaimed money provisions for financial institution accounts and life insurance policies.

Firstly, money that is in inactive financial institution accounts accounts will be declared to be unclaimed after seven years after the last deposit or withdrawal instead of the current three years. In the case of life insurance it will be seven years after the policy matures and is not claimed.

Secondly, children’s bank accounts as well as accounts that are in foreign currencies will be exempt from the unclaimed money regime.

Thirdly, ASIC will no longer be required to publish details of people with unclaimed money in the Unclaimed Money Gazette. This will reduce the chance of identity theft as well as for privacy reasons.

Information about unclaimed accounts, free of charge, will still be available through the ASIC MoneySmart website at www.moneysmart.gov.au.

The intent is to make the changes operative by 31 December 2015. Legislation to amend the Banking Act and the Life Insurance Act will be introduced later this year but will require the support of the Senate.

It is not clear whether similar changes will apply to unclaimed amounts held by superannuation funds.