As businesses lean more heavily on technology to replace human-centric customer service, consumers are confronting a stark reality: when problems arise or questions need answers, they are often on their own in finding the solution. In this landscape, the effectiveness of customer service often hinges less on a company's support quality and more on the consumer's patience, comfort with technology or sheer determination—factors that vary widely among individuals.
KYC (KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER) is a legal requirement for financial institutions to know who their customers are before they work with them. Mandated by global and local regulations, the goal of KYC is to prevent financial crimes such as money laundering, fraud, terrorism financing, and identity theft.
The days of stashing money in a savings account and not thinking about it for years has ended. The treasuries and unclaimed property departments of US States, under mounting financial strain, have leveraged increasingly aggressive tactics to seek out and reap potentially unclaimed assets as a remedy to decreased federal funding and dwindling tax revenues. And unmonitored accounts, opened with long term intentions, are more at risk than ever of being abandoned to the state due to alleged inactivity.
This gentleman left his old friends documents in a box for over a decade unaware that he was in fact the beneficiary of a fortune left behind.
Only by seeking professional assistance was he informed of his inheritance.
You can read more about his story by clicking the link below:
By revising and expanding the scope of its unclaimed property statute, the State of Pennsylvania is solidifying its ability to collect and use an ever expanding amount of its citizens assets.
Reduced dormancy periods to 3 years is unfortunately the new normal, but most concerning here is the 3 year dormancy placed on retirement accounts. By definition a retirement account is supposed to remain untouched for many years so that it may grow; now the Pennsylvania Treasury will lawfully be able to take custody of retirement accounts after 3 years, sell the investments and spend that money. In the rare instance that the account is claimed, they will only be responsible for the amount of the sale. Read more by clicking the link below:
The Uniform Law Commission is drafting a revised version of the uniform unclaimed property law.
It is shocking, but not surprising that State governments organized under the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators have drafted a lengthy and detailed memo to the law commission in support of paying private third party companies a percentage of any money they can collect on behalf of the State and bring it into the unclaimed property coffers. This aggressive policy so obviously incentivizes the collection of as much of the citizens private funds as possible under the most liberal interpretation of the statute.
The irony is that the State governments will explicitly state that they do not advise citizens to work with private third party companies to assist them in recovering unclaimed money from the State, while at the same time employing the very same tactic to take the money in the first place.
You can read their argument by clicking the link below:
http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/323918/tax+authorities/Delaware+Unclaimed+Property+Voluntary+Disclosure+Program+Extended+to+September+30
