Unclaimed dividends: shareholder tracing for registrars and issuers.
An estimated R4.1 billion in dividends is owed to South African shareholders the registrars cannot reach, much of it on certificated holdings, empowerment schemes and the estates of deceased holders. xverified resolves the holder from weakly keyed register data, verifies them or their heirs, and returns an audit trail per holder.
- Sector exposure
- R4.1bn unclaimed
- Applies to
- Certificated · scheme · legacy holders
- Starting data
- Register extract
- Pricing
- Success fee per verified holder
Registers were keyed on names and addresses, not people.
A share register records what the holder wrote on a form years ago. Many entries carry no ID number, a maiden name, or an address that no longer exists. Returned dividend payments accumulate against the holder number while the person moves, marries or dies. Broad-based schemes compound it: thousands of individual holders with a payslip-era address and nothing else.
Holder number to verified shareholder.
- 01
Resolve the holder
Name, address and any ID fragment are resolved probabilistically against the 14 sources to one person, verified with Home Affairs. Deceased holders are confirmed and their estates located. - 02
Trace current details
Current address, phone numbers and, for scheme participants, employer footprints, with the recency of each source. - 03
Verify and document
Field verification where needed: identity, consent, the registrar's mandate and bank-details forms, and a bank account confirmed in the holder's name. - 04
Return keyed on the holder number
Verified holder or heirs, documents and the dated journal, in a file the registrar loads directly.
Enough to pay, and to show why.
- Verified holder
- Home Affairs-confirmed identity, certified ID copy and current contact details per holder number.
- Deceased holders
- Death confirmation, estate reference, executor's appointment or verified heirs for transfer and release.
- Mandates
- Signed bank mandate and consent, with the account confirmed in the holder's name.
- Journal
- Dated record of every step per holder, for the issuer's records and auditors.
- Exceptions
- Holders who could not be resolved, with the steps taken.
Fees are charged only on holders verified to the agreed standard. See pricing.
Registrar questions
Why do dividends go unclaimed?
Certificated and legacy holdings carry addresses from decades ago, holders die without the estate knowing the shares exist, bank mandates lapse and payments bounce back to the registrar, and empowerment schemes allocated shares to large numbers of individuals with thin contact data.
Who engages a tracing agent, the registrar or the issuer?
Either. Registrars run tracing across their client issuers' registers; issuers engage directly, especially for empowerment or employee share schemes where the beneficiaries are their own current and former staff.
What happens to dividends that are never claimed?
They remain owed to the shareholder for the period the company's memorandum of incorporation and the Companies Act provide, and companies must be able to show what they did to pay them. The journal we return is that record.
Can you trace heirs of deceased shareholders?
Yes. The death is confirmed with Home Affairs, the estate located at the Master's Office and the executor or heirs identified and verified, so the registrar can transfer the holding and release the dividends.
Do you update the register?
We return verified details keyed on the holder number for the registrar to load. We do not write to the register ourselves.
Find your
unclaimed.
We start with a scoped sample sweep under a short engagement letter, typically 5 000 dormant records, so you see the recovery rate before you commit to a full programme. You pay only for beneficiaries we trace and verify. See how pricing works.