Help-to-Save Successor accounts for Help-to-Save savers
In September 2018, the Government launched the Help-to-Save scheme to promote and encourage saving among people on low incomes. The scheme is open to new accounts until September 2023. Help-to-Save accounts close four years after opening.
	Help-to-Save accounts are available to individuals on low incomes and in receipt of Working Tax Credit or Universal Credit, with weekly earnings equivalent to working at least 16 hours per week earning the National Living Wage rate (£617.73/month for 2021-22). Account holders may deposit up to £50 per calendar month over a four-year term from opening an account in order to receive Government bonuses.
	The terms and conditions supporting Help-to-Save require the account holder to nominate a bank account into which the bonus will be paid but neither the terms and conditions nor the legislation have made provision for the balance of funds remaining in the account when the account matures at the end of the four-year term. Without instruction from the account holder, the effect of the current legislation and terms and conditions would mean that those funds must remain in the matured Help-to-Save account, earning neither interest nor bonus. NS&I and HMRC are amending the terms and conditions supporting Help-to-Save accounts to make clear that, in the absence of instruction from the account holder, upon maturity the balance in a Help-to-Save account may be transferred to the nominated bank account to which the government bonuses are paid during the scheme.
	The Act provides HM Treasury with a power to make regulations, which would enable the transfer of the balance in a Help-to-Save account into a standard savings account (a successor account) automatically when the account matures after four years, in the absence of instruction from the account holder. This would ensure the remaining funds continue to be accessible while they await instructions from the account holder. The Act specifies that the successor account must be an account in the National Savings Bank, which is operated by National Savings and Investments (NS&I). NS&I currently and separately operate the Help-to-Save accounts.