RBI to develop centralised online portal for search of unclaimed deposits of all banks

As part of its efforts to address the issue of unclaimed deposits, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to launch a web platform that will be active in three to four months to assist recipients in recovering unclaimed funds.

“In order to improve and broaden depositors’ and beneficiaries’ access to such data [of unclaimed deposits], the RBI has decided to develop a web portal that will allow users to search across multiple banks for possible unclaimed deposits based on user inputs. Certain AI tools will be used to improve search results,” RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das declared on Thursday.

It will be password-protected, with only the claimants able to search.

Deposits that remain unclaimed in a bank for ten years are transferred to the RBI’s Depositor Education & Awareness Fund.

“With the protection of depositors as an overarching goal, the RBI has taken various measures to ensure that newer deposits do not go unclaimed and that existing unclaimed deposits are returned to the rightful owners or beneficiaries after due procedure. On the second point, banks publish a list of unclaimed deposits on their websites,” Mr. Das explained.