With the Winter Session currently underway, the Parliament was informed on Tuesday that there has been a 28 per cent annual increase in unclaimed deposits with the banks to ₹42,270 crore in the last financial year.
At the end of March 2023, the amount of unclaimed deposits in Indian banks was recorded at ₹42,272 crore, while the previous year, there was ₹32,934 crore of unclaimed deposits with public and private sector banks.
As much as ₹36,185 crore unclaimed deposits were with public sector banks while ₹6,087 crore were with private sector banks at the end of March 2023, it was told to the Parliament today.
For the unversed, if an unclaimed deposit is lying in a bank for 10 or more years, then it is to be forwarded to RBI's Depositor Education and Awareness (DEA) Fund. However, RBI is actively working toward reducing this amount every year.
What are unclaimed deposits in the bank?
As defined by the Reserve Bank of India, unclaimed deposits are the balances left in savings or current accounts of a user which has been operating for 10 or more years, counting from the date of maturity.
{{/usCountry}}As defined by the Reserve Bank of India, unclaimed deposits are the balances left in savings or current accounts of a user which has been operating for 10 or more years, counting from the date of maturity.
{{/usCountry}}As per the RBI's direction, banks have been advised to display the list of unclaimed deposits in accounts that are inactive or inoperative for ten years or more on the banks' websites and find the whereabouts of the customers, or legal heirs in case of deceased account holders, in order to return unclaimed deposits to the rightful claimants.
As an additional measure, the RBI has also set up a centralised web platform Unclaimed Deposits Gateway to Access Information (UDGAM) to search unclaimed deposits across banks and trace down the original bank account holders.
Under RBI's new campaign '100 Days 100 Pays', major 31 banks (which comprised more than 90 per cent of unclaimed deposit balances with the DEA Fund), have refunded ₹1,432.68 crore in the campaign.
(With inputs from PTI)