RBI announces common portal to check unclaimed money lying with banks; check details here

You will soon be able to check unclaimed money lying with banks through a common portal of banks. This is because Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das on Thursday said the central bank has decided to enable portal to check unclaimed money lying across banks. 

Currently, if you want to find out if you have any unclaimed money then the process involves checking on each bank’s website. You need to type the name of the person along with other details such as an address, pin code or phone number to find out if any unclaimed amount is lying with that particular bank. The common portal will now help you to check such amount across all banks in one go. 

According to a recent statement made in Parliament, public sector banks have transferred unclaimed deposits approximately Rs 35,000 crore to the Reserve Bank. These deposits, which had been inactive for 10 years or more and were associated with 10.24 crore accounts, were transferred to the RBI as of the end of February 2023.

If a bank account remains inactive for 10 years, money gets transferred to the RBI's Depositor Education and Awareness (DEA) Fund every month. The important point to note here is the unclaimed money earns interest at rates specified by the RBI, not at the rate at which the deposit was made.

How to reclaim the unclaimed amount? If the name exists on the list,  then to claim the funds  you need to contact the Home Branch and fill out a claim form, provide deposit receipts, and furnish Know Your Customer (KYC) documents. In  case you are a legal heir or a nominee, a copy of the account holder's death certificate is also needed to be provided to the bank. The bank will then verify the authenticity of the claim before releasing the payment. Once the bank has paid the customer, it will submit a claim to the RBI at the end of the month to receive a refund from the DEA fund. 

Now the common portal will help you in checking unclaimed money lying with all banks in one go. 

RBI on Thursday also said that the monetary policy committee has decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent with readiness to act should the situation so warrant. Since May last year, the central bank has increased the rate by 250 bps over inflation concerns.

Also read: RBI MPC Meet 2023: MPC unanimously votes to keep repo rate unchanged at 6.5%