How to Claim Unclaimed Bank Deposits in India — and Make Sure Your Family Never Has To

Nearly ₹98,000 crore was lying unclaimed in Indian banks as of early 2026 — money the finance ministry confirmed to Parliament had grown from about ₹90,545 crore in mid-2025 to ₹98,073 crore by 31 January 2026. It keeps climbing every year.

Here is the part most people get wrong: the vast majority of that money was never lost to fraud or bad luck. It was simply forgotten — an old salary account from a first job, a fixed deposit that matured while the family was dealing with something harder, a passbook in a drawer nobody thought to open.

This is a practical guide to two things: how to trace and claim deposits that have already gone quiet, and — more importantly — how to make sure your own family never has to go looking in the first place.

What actually counts as "unclaimed"?

The rules are more specific than most people assume:

• An account with no customer-initiated transaction for 24 months is marked inoperative. (Interest the bank credits, or charges it debits, do not count — only you moving money resets the clock.)
• A savings or current account balance becomes unclaimed after 10 years with no transaction.
• A fixed/term deposit becomes unclaimed 10 years from its maturity date — not from the date you opened it.

After that 10-year mark, the bank transfers the balance to the Depositor Education and Awareness (DEA) Fund, held by the Reserve Bank of India.

The transfer to the DEA Fund does not change who owns the money. Your right to claim it stays fully alive — and eligible interest-bearing deposits keep earning simple interest (currently 3%) even while they sit in the fund.

Where forgotten money hides

Before you search any portal, do a quiet audit at home. Old accounts leave a paper trail:

• Old passbooks, chequebooks and FD receipts — the obvious ones, often in the back of a drawer.
• Locker keys and locker-rent receipts — a rent debit points straight to a live banking relationship.
• Form 26AS, the AIS, and past income-tax returns — TDS deducted on interest is a giveaway that a deposit exists somewhere.
• Email and SMS archives — search for "statement", "FD", "matured", "OTP" and old bank names.
• Standing instructions — insurance premiums, SIPs and utility auto-debits all run from an account.
• Broking, mutual-fund and insurance folios — each carries a bank mandate for payouts.
• The banks' own unclaimed-account lists, published on their websites.

How to search on RBI's UDGAM portal

RBI runs a free portal called UDGAM specifically so depositors and heirs can find unclaimed accounts across banks in one place:

1. Register and log in on the UDGAM portal.

2. Choose to search one bank, several banks, or all banks at once.

3. Enter the account holder's name and the details the portal asks for.

4. It checks its database and tells you which bank holds a matching unclaimed account.

UDGAM identifies the bank — it doesn't hand over the balance. The exact amount and the actual claim are settled offline, at the branch where the account was held.

Claiming the money

If the account holder is alive: it's usually straightforward — complete fresh KYC and the bank reactivates the account.

If the account holder has passed away, it becomes a deceased-claim settlement, and how smooth it is depends almost entirely on one thing — whether there was a nominee.

• With a nominee: the simplest path. Under Section 45ZA of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, the nominee steps into the depositor's rights for that deposit. The bank should not demand a succession certificate, probate or an indemnity — typically it needs only the death certificate and the nominee's KYC.
• No nominee, smaller amounts: many banks allow a simplified settlement up to a threshold — usually a claim form, the death certificate and an indemnity bond, sometimes with an affidavit or a simple family declaration.
• No nominee, larger amounts: the bank will generally ask for a succession certificate or legal-heir certificate from a competent authority.
• Where there is a Will, the bank may require probate; where someone died without a Will and left substantial sums, heirs often need letters of administration from a court.

In other words: the difference between a two-document formality and a months-long court process is often just whether a nominee was named. That is entirely in your control today.

The real lesson

Notice what every unclaimed deposit has in common. The money didn't disappear because anyone was careless — it disappeared because the record of it lived in one person's memory, or a drawer, or an inbox no one else could reach. UDGAM is a wonderful safety net, but it's a search you run after things have already gone wrong.

The better answer is to make sure your family never needs UDGAM at all.

That means one place where every account, fixed deposit, insurance policy, investment folio — and the nominee details for each — is written down and reachable by the people you choose, at the moment they'd actually need it. Not scattered across passbooks and inboxes. Organised, in one secure place, on purpose.

That is exactly what Soult is built for: your family's essentials — money, documents, and the wishes that go with them — kept in one private, encrypted vault, so nothing you worked for ever has to be searched for.

A quiet afternoon organising it now is worth more than any portal search later.

Official tools & sources: RBI's UDGAM portal is the free, official way to search for unclaimed deposits across banks. The Reserve Bank of India is the custodian of the DEA Fund, and the ₹98,073 crore figure is from the finance ministry's statement to the Rajya Sabha (January 2026). Rules and thresholds change — always confirm the current position with your bank or on rbi.org.in.

---

This article is for general information only. It is not legal, tax or financial advice. Rules, thresholds and procedures for unclaimed deposits change and vary by bank — confirm the current position with your bank, and consult a qualified professional for your specific situation. Soult helps you organise and store your information; it is not a bank and does not process deposit claims.