A lot of people end up having multiple bank savings accounts, for reasons such as job change, relocation, the account holder’s death, etc. Some of these accounts are forgotton and become dormant when there are no transactions for over two years. Data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows that 10.24 crore accounts were dormant for over 10 years, with Rs 34,012 crore unclaimed deposits, as of February 2023.

The process of finding and reactivating such an account could be tedious, especially for nominees and heirs. RBI has now stepped in to ease the process.

In the recent monetary policy announcement, RBI announced the launch of a centralised web portal where people can search for their accounts instead of checking with banks’ portals separately. At present, the depositor must visit the website of a particular bank and look for any dormant account with their name and address, or check with the bank in person.

No transactions can be carried out from a dormant account. Here’s the process of reactivating a dormant account once you find out the bank in which it exists.