Treasury has released the Banking Laws Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill 2015 and the Banking Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Regulation 2015.

The draft Bill and Regulation will implement changes previously announced by the Government.

If passed the Bill will:

• amend the Banking Act and the Life Insurance Act to extend the unclaimed moneys period from three years to seven years from 31 December 2015.
• provide that ADI accounts created for children and those that are held in a foreign currency are exempt from the unclaimed moneys provisions.
• stop ADI accounts being transferred to the Commonwealth when the account holder provides notification that the account should be treated as active after the account is assessed as unclaimed moneys at the end of the calendar year but before the it is transferred to the Commonwealth.
• amend the Banking Act to remove the requirement for ASIC to publish details of unclaimed moneys in the annual unclaimed moneys gazette and introduce a secrecy provision to prevent access to information on unclaimed moneys via the FOI Act. The Treasurer will retain the ability to publish information on unclaimed moneys, such as on ASIC’s MoneySmart website.