Part 1: The Dormant Assets Scheme Section 1: The Dormant Assets Scheme: Overview
This section provides an overview of the operation of the Scheme, which enables eligible participants to transfer money from dormant or unwanted assets to an authorised reclaim fund. Having determined how much it must retain in order to meet any future reclaims, the section allows the reclaim fund to distribute the surplus to TNLCF.
	Subsection (3) sets out the main features of the Dormant Assets Scheme, which mirror those specified in the 2008 Act. It ensures that once a participant transfers an asset to the reclaim fund, any liability pertaining to the transfer, including any liability to meet owner reclaims, is extinguished and makes provisions for the reclaim fund to take on the liability to meet such reclaims.
	Beneficial owners can always reclaim the full amount owed to them. Participants transfer the dormant money to the reclaim fund. Participants act as agents of the reclaim fund – for example, maintaining owner engagement, records, and personal data on its behalf; and managing and verifying reclaims before recouping the amount from the reclaim fund. Owners therefore engage with participants – rather than the reclaim fund – in order to make a reclaim.
	Subsection (5) provides that the reclaim fund retains sufficient funds to meet future reclaims and that surplus money can be distributed via TNLCF for social and environmental purposes.
	Subsection (6) lists the dormant assets which fall in scope of the Scheme:
Bank and building society accounts, which includes suspense accounts, specified in section 1 of the 2008 Act;
Long-term insurance assets as specified in sections 2 to 4 in the Act;
Pension assets as specified in sections 5 to 7 in the Act;
Investment assets as specified in sections 8 to 11 in the Act;
Client money assets as specified in sections 12 and 13; and
Securities assets as specified in sections 14 to 16 in the Act.
	Subsection (7) states that this Act supersedes the general Scheme under the 2008 Act, but does not affect its continued operation.
	Subsection (8) disapplies the following from the Scheme:
a transfer of an agreed proportion of a balance from the alternative scheme for smaller institutions under section 2 of the 2008 Act; and
unwanted assets, i.e. where owners have chosen to give away all or part of their asset to the reclaim fund.
	Subsection (9) clarifies that activities may be carried out directly by an institution or by another person acting on its behalf.
	Subsection (10) ensures that the provisions of Part 1 relating to transfers of dormant assets to the reclaim fund cover not only cases where an amount is payable immediately (i.e., as a debt) but also cases where the person entitled to an amount needs to request payment, or that person’s entitlement needs to be verified, before the amount becomes payable immediately.