“I am glad to see the Treasury focus on helping Americans obtain their hard-earned money so they can invest it in their future and their families. There’s more work to do, but the Treasury is making great progress.”

 WASHINGTON — Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) today provided an update on efforts made by the Treasury Department to help Americans redeem $26 billion in unclaimed savings bonds.

“I am glad to see the Treasury focus on helping Americans obtain their hard-earned money so they can invest it in their future and their families. There’s more work to do, but the Treasury is making great progress,” said Kennedy.

The Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service in December conducted market research on how to improve methods and technologies that help digitize matured, unredeemed savings bonds. This research focused on how to make old bonds searchable for 21st-century users. The Fiscal Service also hosted a Retail Securities Services Industry Day to explore technologies that digitize these bonds. 

This December, the Fiscal Service relaunched Treasury Hunt, an online search tool that allows bond owners to find information such as whether bonds are no longer earning interest or are owned by deceased family members. According to Fiscal Service, Treasury Hunt has been searched more than 31,000 times.

As chairman of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee, Kennedy last year secured $25 million through appropriations for digitizing bond records. Kennedy also introduced the Unclaimed Savings Bond Act (USB Act) to allow states to add names and addresses for the bonds to their unclaimed property databases.