Nearly Rs 24,500 crore lying unclaimed with banks

New Delhi: As many account-holders remained untraced and not claiming their money either, unclaimed deposits in scheduled commercial banks have been on the rise.

As much as Rs 24,356 crore deposits remained unclaimed across scheduled commercial banks at the end of 2020, official data has revealed.

Moreover, unclaimed deposits increased by Rs 5,977 crore in the year 2020, as compared to the year 2019.

"RBI has informed that unclaimed deposits have increased by Rs 5,977 crore in the year 2020, as compared to the year 2019, on account of depositors not having claimed their deposits from banks," said Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Bhagwat Karad in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has advised banks to find the whereabouts of account holders not claiming their money.

As per RBI data, the country's largest bank SBI has a total unclaimed deposit (more than 10 years old) of Rs 3,577.56 crore.

SBI and other nationalised banks together had a total unclaimed deposits of Rs 16,596.90 crore at the end of 2020.

Among private banks, ICICI Bank accounted for the bulk of the unclaimed deposits. In 22.74 lakh accounts of the bank, the unclaimed deposits totalled Rs 809.29 crore.

Unclaimed deposits across private banks stood at Rs 2,963.54 crore.

As regards foreign banks, HSBC, Citi Bank and Standard Chartered Bank had most of the unclaimed deposits.

In over 6 lakh accounts in the foreign banks, a total of Rs 612.33 crore remained unclaimed as on December, 2020. (UNI)