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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued revised instructions regarding various inoperative accounts and unclaimed deposits in banks. The revised instructions shall come into effect from April 1, 2024
As per extant instructions, the credit balance in any deposit account maintained with banks, which has not been operated upon for ten years or more, or any amount remaining unclaimed for ten years or more, is required to be transferred by banks to Depositor Education and Awareness (DEA) Fund maintained by the Reserve Bank of India.
A savings/ current account shall be treated as inoperative, if there are no ‘customer induced transactions’ in the account for a period of over two years.
Banks shall undertake at least an annual review in respect of accounts, where there are no customer-induced transactions for more than a year.
In cases where there is no explicit mandate to renew the term deposit, the banks should review such accounts if the customers have not withdrawn the proceeds after maturity or transferred these to their savings/current account in order to prevent such deposits from becoming unclaimed.
As per RBI, the segregation of inoperative accounts is required to be done to reduce the risk of fraud. The transactions in inoperative accounts, which have been reactivated, shall be monitored regularly, for at least six months, at higher levels (i.e. by controlling authorities of the concerned branch) without the knowledge and notice of the customers and the dealing staff.
