RBI releases revised instructions for inoperative accounts and unclaimed deposits in banks

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released a draft circular on inoperative accounts/ unclaimed deposits in banks- Revised Instructions (Amendment) 2025. The RBI has also invited comments on the draft circular from the public/ stakeholders till June 6, 2025.

As per the RBI circular issued in 2024, the credit balance in any deposit account maintained with banks, which have not been operated upon for ten years or more, or any amount remaining unclaimed for ten years or more (as mentioned in paragraph 3(iii) of the Depositor Education and Awareness (DEA) Fund Scheme, 2014) are required to be transferred by banks to DEA Fund maintained by the Reserve Bank of India. 

There is a need to enable the Business Correspondents to facilitate KYC and its updation.

In exercise of the powers conferred by sections 35A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 read with sections 26A, 51 and 56 of the Act and all other provisions of this Act or any other laws enabling Reserve Bank to issue instructions in this regard, these instructions are being issued to amend the extant instructions as given hereunder.

These instructions shall be called the Inoperative Accounts/ Unclaimed Deposits in Banks – Revised Instructions (Amendment), 2025.

The amended instructions shall come into effect on the day these are placed on the official website of the Reserve Bank of India.

In the extant instructions, the paragraph 6.1 is hereby substituted by the following, namely:

A bank shall make available the facility of updation of KYC for activation of inoperative accounts/ unclaimed deposits at all branches (including non-home branches) and through Video-Customer Identification Process (V-CIP) if requested by a account holder, subject to the facility of V-CIP being provided by the bank.

The V-CIP related instructions under Master Direction - Know Your Customer (KYC) Direction, 2016 dated February 25, 2016 (as updated from time to time) shall be adhered to by the bank. 

Additionally, an authorised Business Correspondent of the bank may be utilized for activation of inoperative accounts as prescribed in paragraph 38(a)(iia) of the above Master Direction, the RBI said in its latest notice.