RBI launches '100 days, 100 pays' to return unclaimed money

The money deposited in the country’s banks for which no claimant has come forward for a long time, the banks will soon return the money after finding the claimant of that money. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has started a campaign named ‘100 Days 100 Pays’ for the country’s banks. Under this, every bank in every district of the country will have to identify the 100 largest unclaimed deposits ie the amount without claim, find its claimant and return the money to the claimant within 100 days.

Reserve Bank said that this campaign will start from June 1. That is, by the end of the first fortnight of September, banks will return the money after identifying the unclaimed deposit and finding its claimant.

Normally, the money deposited in the bank’s savings and current accounts where there is no transaction for 10 years, is declared as unclaimed deposit. Apart from this, even after 10 years of maturity of a term deposit, if no one claims its money, then that money is also declared as unclaimed depo

The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in the meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC),  asked the banks to devise ways to settle the unclaimed funds issue. She asked the regulators to deliver unclaimed shares, dividends, mutual funds, insurance, etc. to the concerned persons or nominees under this campaign. The people concerned should be helped to return the amount lying unclaimed.

Portal will be made
Public sector banks had sent an unclaimed amount of about Rs 35,000 crore to the Reserve Bank till February 2023. This amount was deposited in those accounts in which there was no transaction for 10 years or more.
This unclaimed amount was linked to 10.24 crore accounts. The Reserve Bank had said last month that a centralized portal related to this would be prepared in three-four months. With this, depositors and beneficiaries can get information about unclaimed deposits lying in different banks. After this meeting, it is expected that soon this portal will be ready and this unclaimed amount will be able to reach the depositors or the people associated with them.