Can You Get Your Money Back If Banks Transfer Your Funds to RBI's DEA? Here's How

The Depositor Education and Awareness Fund (DEA Fund), was established by the Reserve Bank of India, to absorb any funds from dormant accounts be it savings, fixed deposits, and other inactive accounts which have not been operated or unclaimed for 10 years or more. When transferring funds to DEA, the banks are required to send the entire principal, along with accrued interest. So once the amount gets transferred to the DEA Fund, is there any way to reclaim your money? Absolutely, Customers or depositors can claim a refund of their unclaimed amounts from their banks.

How To Get Your Money Back?

Depositors or their heirs can retrieve their unclaimed amounts directly from their banks. But if you are unsure where your funds were before transfer to DEA, use the Unclaimed Deposits-Gateway to Access Information (UDGAM) portal - udgam.rbi.org.in/unclaimed-deposits/#/login.

Depositors or their heirs or nominees have to login with their mobile numbers and perform a simple search. For searching unclaimed deposits in individual categories, a user has to provide inputs such as the name of the account holder, the name of the bank (one or more banks can be selected) and any one or more of the five inputs viz., Permanent Account Number (PAN), Driving License Number, Voter ID Number, Passport Number and Date of Birth of the account holder.

As of March 4, 2024, 30 banks are listed on the UDGAM portal, which covers roughly 90 per cent of unclaimed deposits in the DEA Fund. You can select all 30 banks by selecting the 'All Bank' option and you can see if any bank has transferred your money to the DEA fund. Deposits can only be claimed directly from the respective bank.

Upon request from the customer or legal heir, banks repay the depositor with interest (if applicable) and then they claim a refund from the DEA Fund for the equivalent amount paid to the depositor.

If the bank you deposited is under liquidation, similar to a claim from DEA Fund, depositors can contact the Liquidator who is supposed to pay the entire amount, even though only Rs 5 lakh is covered by Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation and then get remaining amount from DEA Fund.