The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has urged banks to intensify efforts to identify and return unclaimed deposits of over Rs 67,000 crore to rightful owners. Unclaimed deposits include dormant savings accounts and current accounts, matured term deposits, uncollected dividends, interest warrants, and insurance proceeds.
A special outreach initiative is planned from October to December in rural and semi-urban regions to trace owners of these dormant accounts and settle them, according to multiple media reports. Balances in savings and current accounts that remain inoperative for ten years, or term deposits not claimed within ten years from the date of maturity, are classified as unclaimed deposits and subsequently transferred by banks to the DEA fund maintained by the central bank.
The RBI’s initiative will target areas with lower literacy and awareness levels with localised publicity in various languages via print and electronic media. State Level Bank Committees (SLBCs) will analyse unclaimed-deposit data by age profile and bucket-wise concentration to provide a more localised analysis, with special efforts to trace them and settle the deposits.
UDGAM (Unclaimed Deposits – Gateway to Access Information) portal is a centralised online platform launched by the RBI to help the public find their unclaimed deposits across multiple banks in India. The portal currently covers approximately 90 per cent of unclaimed deposit value with participation from around 30 banks.
As per the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDAI), all insurers who have unclaimed amounts from policyholders for a period of more than 10 years are required to transfer the same with interest to the Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund (SCWF) every year.
Further, even after transferring the unclaimed amounts to the SCWF, the policyholder or claimant continues to be eligible to claim the amounts due under their respective policies for a period of up to 25 years. The SCWF is utilised for such schemes for the promotion of the welfare of the senior citizens in line with the National Policy on Older Persons and the National Policy on Senior Citizens.
