Indian Banks Concerned about 3652 Crore Unclaimed Money


BANGALORE: The total amount of unclaimed money lying in several Indian banks amounted to more than 3652.64 crore at the end of December 2012. Of which the public sector banks accounted for 3,237 crore, the private sector accounted for 340 crore and  foreign lenders accounted for the rest 75 crore, according to data given to the Lok Sabha by the Finance Ministry.

Any bank account, which has not been active for 10 years, becomes inoperative and the amount in such accounts is transferred to the suspense account. SBI is in possession of 539 crore, the Canara Bank has 526 crore, and the Union Bank of India has 390 crore. Among the private banks, ICICI Bank tops the chart with a deposit of 101 crore, reports The Hindu. The total amount of 3652.64 crore is distributed in 1.33 crore accounts. Savings accounts contribute to 75 percent of the total unclaimed money.RBI has plans to set up a Depositor Education and Awareness Fund with the unclaimed money to promote depositors’ interests and to spread financial literacy among the public.

 Various factors have contributed to the increase of unclaimed money. When an account holder passes away, his/her inheritors may not be aware of the existence of the account, hence the money lies in account. Even when the heir is aware of the account, he/she may not show interest because of the cumbersome process involved to claim the money. According to current practice, the heir has to furnish affidavit in support of his/her identity as the legal heir, letters of disclaimer from all other heirs and such other documents. In other cases, if the deceased person has not declared nominee or there’s no joint account holder, then the heirs find it difficult to retrieve the money. The other scenario is when a person switches jobs from one company to the other; the previous salary account remains inactive. However, the RBI has recently directed all the banks to initiate the process to identify all the depositors.

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