Dormant bank accounts and the DEA Fund: reclaiming what the RBI holds
Deposits untouched for ten years move to the RBI’s Depositor Education and Awareness Fund. Your right to the money survives the transfer entirely.
An account with no customer-initiated transaction for two years is classified dormant. At ten years, the balance is transferred to the RBI’s Depositor Education and Awareness Fund. Matured fixed deposits that were never renewed follow the same path.
Your claim survives
Transfer to the DEA Fund is an accounting arrangement between the bank and the RBI. It does not extinguish your right. The bank remains obliged to refund the amount, with interest at the rate prescribed under the scheme, whenever a valid claim is made.
Finding the account
The RBI’s UDGAM portal lets you search across participating banks using your name and identifiers. Individual banks also publish unclaimed deposit lists on their websites. Searching both is worthwhile, because coverage differs.
Reactivation
Reactivating a dormant account requires fresh KYC, signature verification and, at some banks, a branch visit. Where the branch has merged or closed, the successor bank inherits the obligation — identifying the correct successor entity is often the hardest step.
If the depositor has died
Where a nomination exists the claim is straightforward. Without one, the bank will require heirship evidence, and the same threshold logic that applies to securities applies here too.
