Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued new instructions to banks to strengthen their ongoing efforts to reduce the volume of unclaimed deposits in the banking system and return these deposits to their legitimate owners or claimants.
As per the existing instructions, the credit balance of any deposit account maintained with banks which has not been operated during 10 years or more, or any amount which has not been claimed for 10 years or more, shall be deposited with the banks. Should be transferred to DEA. Fund maintained by RBI.
Based on its final review, the RBI has decided to issue comprehensive guidelines on measures that banks should implement covering various aspects of classification of accounts and deposits as inoperative accounts and unclaimed deposits, as the case may be. Be, periodic review of such accounts and deposits, measures to be taken to prevent frauds in such accounts/deposits, arrangement for redressal of queries for prompt resolution of those queries, measures to be taken to trace customers of inoperative accounts/deposits, Which also includes their legal representatives/successors for reactivation of accounts. , Liquidation or closure of claims and procedure to be followed for defaults.
The Bank will contact the holder of the inactive account/deposit not to recover the amount through card, email or SMS (if the email and mobile number is registered with the Bank). As per established guidelines, email/SMS will be sent quarterly.
If the whereabouts of the account holder of a dormant account cannot be traced or the deposits have not been claimed, the Bank will inform the furnisher, if any, what the account holder presented to the Bank at the time of opening the account. Account. If registered, the bank will also put you in touch with the representative to trace the customer.
Banks will make provision for activation of unclaimed dormant accounts/deposits in all branches (including out-of-door branches) and KYC update function through the process of Customer Identification by Video (V-CIP), and this request Account holder, subject to the setup of V-CIP and provided by the Bank. The Bank is required to comply with the instructions relating to V-CIP in the Master Direction: Know Your Customer (KYC), 2016, dated February 25, 2016 (as updated from time to time).
It has also been ordered to the banks which host the details of unclaimed deposits {only name, address (without PIN code) and unclaimed deposits reference number (UDRN), which have been transferred to the DEA fund of RBI. on their respective web sites, which will be updated from time to time. , , At least monthly.
Banks which do not have their own website should make the above list of unclaimed deposits available in their respective branches. The database hosted on the web site will provide a search option to allow the public to search for their unclaimed deposits using the number in combination with the address of the account holder/entity.
