NS&I to contact bereaved families owed £367m after missing savings scandal

National Savings and Investments bank will start to contact thousands of families affected by a missing savings scandal next week, as it confirmed how much they are owed. In March, the chief executive of the state-backed bank was forced out after it emerged there had been long-running problems with the tracing of accounts belonging to customers who had died . At the time, NS&I estimated that as much as £476m had been mistakenly withheld from families. That figure has now been revised down to £367m with up to 34,000 estates affected, according to a short update published on Tuesday. Sir Jim Harra, the former HM Revenue and Customs boss parachuted in as the bank’s interim chief executive, repeated the bank’s apology: “This issue should not have happened,” he said. “Beginning the process of repaying these funds is a key step in putting things right.” NS&I is one of the largest savings organisations in the UK, holding more than £240bn on behalf of 24 million customers, and operates a monthly draw for holders of premium bonds. There have been complaints that it failed to pay out cash prizes to the families of deceased savers, and reports it delayed payments and lost track of money. The errors happened because the search process used when handling a bereavement claim failed to identify all relevant NS&I products, Harra said. …