The Bank of Canada only gets dormant accounts transferred from federally-regulated financial institutions, like chartered banks. Accounts at credit unions and caisses populaires are not transferred to the central bank, and there is no publicly-searchable central registry for these unclaimed accounts (except in British Columbia, Quebec and Nova Scotia).

Outside those three provinces, your best bet is to contact the branch of the institution where you think an account may have been located. Failing that, contact the head office. Be sure to provide as much detail as you can.

Credit unions are provincially regulated in Canada. In some provinces (like Ontario), dormant accounts are eventually sent to the provincial ministry of finance, so claims for those accounts must be made to the ministry.

In other provinces, they stay with the credit unions. In Saskatchewan, dormant accounts worth more than $5,000 are transferred to the provincial Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corp. Smaller dormant accounts stay at the credit union.

We mentioned B.C., Quebec and Nova Scotia. Those provinces are the lone bright spots in Canada for people looking for easy access to information about unclaimed credit union accounts.

In B.C., credit unions transfer their dormant accounts to a non-profit group known as the B.C. Unclaimed Property Society.

It has a website with a searchable database that lists inactive deposit accounts that had been held by B.C.'s credit unions. But it doesn't stop there. This little gold mine also locates unclaimed money that was held in trust for children who are now adults and can't be found, real estate deposits, unpaid wages, and money from people who died without a will when the next of kin can't be located.

Credit Union Central of British Columbia also has its own searchable database which can be linked to here.

In Quebec, Revenu Quebec operates a register of unclaimed property. This register has a searchable database that lists accounts that have been transferred from provincial caisses populaires. But it also lists many other financial and property assets, including money that had been held by insurance companies, pension plans, securities dealers, travel agencies and mutual fund companies. The total value of the unclaimed property it's looking after is $195.8 million at last count.

In Nova Scotia, all dormant credit union accounts (those inactive for at least seven years) are transferred to the province's Credit Union Deposit Insurance Corp. It has an online database of unclaimed accounts that's free to search.

Why can't all the provinces do this?

To Part 3: Unclaimed life insurance benefits