Notes to editor
1. The six UK Finance member organisations launching the Death Notification Services are: Barclays PLC, HSBC UK, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide Building Society, RBS Group and Santander UK. The related banks and building societies participating are:
| Barclays PLC |
Barclaycard |
| |
Barclays |
| HSBC UK |
First Direct |
| |
HSBC UK |
| |
M&S Bank |
| Lloyds Banking Group |
Bank of Scotland |
| |
Clerical Medical |
| |
Halifax |
| |
Lloyds Bank |
| |
Scottish Widows |
| Nationwide Building Society |
Nationwide Building Society |
| |
TMW (The Mortgage Works) |
| |
UCB Home Loans Ltd |
| RBS Group |
NatWest |
| Santander UK |
Cahoot |
| |
Santander UK |
2. Individuals using the Death Notification Service will be asked to select the specific brands or institutions which need to be notified. In many cases, a notification to a brand belonging to one financial group will trigger a one-stop notification across products and within UK customer brands within the group.
3. The Death Notification Service is a separate, independent service and is not linked to, or a replacement for, ‘Tell Us Once’ which is a service that lets people report a death to government organisations.
4. The Death Notification Service is hosted by Equiniti who will share details of notification with the six participating UK Finance member organisations.
5. In 2016 a number of UK Finance members agreed to implement the Bereavement Principles to improve the experience and outcomes for those in bereaved circumstances. Among this was a commitment to explore the feasibility of a Death Notification Service which would enable an individual to notify a number of financial services organisations about the death of a customer in one go.
6. There are approximately 500,000 deaths registered in the UK each year (based on ONS data). People rarely have a relationship only with one bank or building society. Members of the Service cover around 85 per cent of the current account market; combined, they would all receive about 900,000 notifications annually. UK Finance is in liaison with those banks and building societies who have not currently joined the service and will be actively encouraging them to join, providing regular updates for them on how the service has been received.
7. The Death Notification Service is a technology-driven solution, providing a secure internet-based portal to the general public to notify several financial institutions of a bereavement at the same time. The portal collates the requested (and necessary) information, prior to identification checks and cross reference matching against the Government Records Office database taking place to protect against fraudulent notifications. Following these checks, the data is securely distributed to each respective financial institution alerted of the bereavement where their usual bereavement processes are initiated.
8. UK Finance is a trade association which was formed on 1 July 2017 to represent the finance and banking industry operating in the UK. It represents around 300 firms in the UK providing credit, banking, markets and payment-related services. The new organisation brings together most of the activities previously carried out by the Asset Based Finance Association, the British Bankers’ Association, the Council of Mortgage Lenders, Financial Fraud Action UK, Payments UK and The UK Cards Association.