The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has good news for bank customers.
Now, you won’t lose money if you don’t have a minimum balance in your account and haven’t used it for two years.
The RBI says banks can’t apply the minimum balance rule to accounts with no transactions for two years.
Accounts opened for scholarships and direct benefit transfer (DBT) won’t be closed, even if there’s been no activity for two years. These new rules start from April 1.
RBI Circular
The RBI issued a circular about this. Under the new rules, banks must tell customers if their accounts will be closed.
The RBI wants to reduce idle money in banks, and this circular is part of that effort.
Notification through SMS, letter, or email
Banks must inform customers about account deactivation through SMS, letter, or email.
If there’s no response from the account owner, the guarantor (required when opening an account) will be contacted.
No fees for reactivating accounts
Banks can’t charge fees for not maintaining the minimum balance in inactive accounts.
Reactivating inactive accounts won’t cost anything. According to the RBI, unclaimed deposits increased to Rs 42,272 crore by March 2023, up from Rs 32,934 crore the previous year.
RBI recovers money from accounts closed for 10 years
If a deposit account hasn’t been used for 10 years or more, the bank must transfer the money to the Depositors and Education Awareness Fund created by the RBI.
