The Centre is keen to start a special drive to facilitate the settlement of unclaimed bank deposits. Besides bank deposits, such similar drives would be initiated for shares and dividends, mutual funds and insurance, as well.
Union Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman told regulators at the recently-held 27th meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) meeting to conduct a special drive to facilitate the settlement of unclaimed deposits in the financial sector across all segments.
This follows Sitharaman’s announcement in her Budget Speech on February 1, 2023 to set up an integrated IT portal for investors to help them reclaim their unpaid dividends and unclaimed shares.
“In order to boost investor protection and further solidify the financial sector and allow investors to reclaim unclaimed shares and unpaid dividends from the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority with ease, an integrated IT portal is proposed to be established,” she had said.
She further said that in order “to improve bank governance and enhance investors’ protection, certain amendments to the Banking Regulation Act, the Banking Companies Act, and the Reserve Bank of India Act are proposed”.
Incidentally, at the monetary policy committee meeting last month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had announced plans for a centralised Web portal to better facilitate claims for such unclaimed deposits.
RBI governor Shaktikanta Das had announced that a centralised Web portal will be developed so that the public will be able to search for unclaimed deposits at a centralised platform rather than going through separate bank websites.
“RBI announces the development of a centralised Web portal for the public to search for unclaimed deposits. At present, the depositors or beneficiaries of unclaimed bank deposits of 10 years or more have to go through multiple websites of banks to look for unclaimed deposits...This will help depositors and beneficiaries in getting bank their unclaimed deposits,” Das said.
Technically, an unclaimed deposit is one that has not seen any activity from the depositor for 10 years or more, and is considered to be inactive. At present, banks publish the list of unclaimed deposits or inoperative accounts on their respective website. This list also contains the names and addresses of the account holders.
How To Claim Unclaimed Bank Deposits
Obtaining unclaimed deposits is a rather simple process. Here is a basic step-by-step guide to follow.
- You will first need to know the bank name and enter specific details on the respective bank’s website.
- Each bank will have a different combination of fields on the website that you will have to fill in order to get the account number. Some banks could ask for a combination of first and last name and mobile number, Permanent Account Number, Address with pincode, date of birth and so on of the depositor.
- After you key in the correct details, the website will display the account details, including account number and name of branch.
- Then, you will need to physically go the branch and present your know your customer (KYC) documents.
- If you are the legal heir, you will have to submit a copy of the death certificate along with your KYC and identity documents to claim the deposit.
The RBI’s unified website will be of great help to depositors and their legal heirs to locate multiple accounts quickly and easily instead of scouring for details on the individual website of the respective banks.
Incidentally, as of February 2023, unclaimed deposits of about Rs. 35,000 crore were transferred to the RBI’s Depositor Education and Awareness Fund (DEAF) by public sector banks (PSBs). These deposits belong to 102 million accounts. State Bank of India (SBI) tops the list with Rs 8,086 crore in unclaimed deposits, followed by Punjab National Bank with Rs 5,340 crore, Canara Bank with Rs 4,558 crore, and Bank of Baroda with Rs 3,904 crore.
