The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced that a new central web portal will be set up to look for unclaimed deposits that are more than ten years old. Currently, bank customers need to visit the websites of various institutions to retrieve their deposits. However, this new web platform will enable bank customers to locate their unclaimed deposits in one convenient location.
Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das said “right now, people who have bank deposits that have been unclaimed for 10 years or more have to look through the websites of several banks to find them. Consequently, in order to increase and broaden depositors’ and beneficiaries' access to information on such unclaimed deposits, it has been agreed to create an online site that would allow them to search across several banks for probable unclaimed deposits.
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This will assist depositors/beneficiaries in recovering unclaimed deposits.”
Unclaimed deposits with banks recently declined to Rs 35,012 crore from Rs 48,262 crore a year ago, according to government data.
The total amount of unclaimed deposits transferred to the Reserve Bank of India by public sector banks in respect of deposits not operated for 10 years or more was Rs 35,012 crore until February 2023, compared to Rs 48,262 in March 2022, according to Bhagwat Karad, Minister of State for Finance, in a written reply to Parliament.
According to the reports, State Bank of India (SBI) leads the chart with Rs 8,086 crore in unclaimed deposits, followed by Punjab National Bank (Rs 5,340 crore), Canara Bank (Rs 4,558 crore)
What are unclaimed deposits?
If there has been no movement on a deposit for 10 years or more, such as a deposit of funds or a withdrawal from the depositor, it is termed unclaimed.
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Most of the reason for the rise in unclaimed deposits is that people forget to close their checking or savings accounts when they no longer want to use them or don't tell their banks when they want to redeem their matured fixed deposits. Accounts belonging to deceased depositors have also been reported when the nominees or legal heirs fail to file a claim against the bank or banks in question.
