The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently announced that the banks will soon start their ‘100 days, 100 pays’ campaign. This is in relation to the unclaimed deposits that are held by public sector banks across India.
What exactly is the ‘100 days, 100 pays’ campaign? Let us explain here.
The banking regulator has directed the banks to trace and settle the top 100 unclaimed deposits held by each bank in each district in the next 100 days.
The total sum of unclaimed deposits amounts to ₹35,012 crore as on Feb end, shows the RBI data.
The campaign will be one of the efforts to reduce the quantum of unclaimed deposits and return them to their rightful owners.
Recently, RBI announced that it is set to launch a website to enable depositors search across banks for possible unclaimed deposits based on inputs from the users.
What are unclaimed deposits?
When a bank account (savings or current) is not operational for a period of 10 years, or if there is a term deposit that is not claimed for 10 years from the date of maturity, it is classified as ‘unclaimed deposits’.
And when a bank classifies a bank account as ‘unclaimed deposit’, the amount is transferred by banks to the depositor education and awareness fund maintained by the Reserve Bank of India.
The RBI set up the Depositor Education and Awareness Fund Scheme in 2014 to promote depositors’ interest and for other related purposes.
Each Bank is supposed to display the list of unclaimed deposits on its official portal.
