Key Points
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued comprehensive guidelines on the measures to be implemented by the banks covering various aspects of how to classify deposits and accounts as unclaimed deposits and inoperative accounts, respectively, periodic review of such deposits and accounts, fraud prevention measures in such steps to be taken for tracing the customers of unclaimed deposits and inoperative accounts, including their nominees/legal heirs for account reactivation, settlement of claims or closure to be followed...
How will banks review unclaimed, inoperative accounts?..
In case a customer is maintaining multiple accounts/deposits with a bank, all such accounts/deposits shall be assessed individually for the purpose of classifying them as inoperative account/ unclaimed deposit, as the case may be, the RBI states...
If the account holder requests it, the banks must provide the option to update KYC for the purpose of activating inactive accounts and unclaimed deposits at all branches, including non-home branches, and via the Video-Customer Identification Process (V-CIP), provided that the bank offers this service..
The Master Direction - Know Your Customer (KYC) Direction, 2016 dated February 25, 2016 (as amended from time to time) contains KYC guidelines that the banks must follow in order to activate inactive accounts and unclaimed deposits, including those that are frozen by orders from various agencies such as courts, tribunals, and law enforcement agencies..
