Unclaimed bank deposits are on the rise, touching Rs 42,270 crore as on March 2023. This is up 28% from Rs 32,934 crore a year ago.

The latest figure of unclaimed deposits with the public and private sector banks was revealed in Parliament on Tuesday.

While Rs 36,185 crore of unclaimed deposits reside in public sector banks, Rs 6,087 crore are with private sector banks as of 31 March 2023.

Banks send unclaimed deposits of account holders lying in their accounts for 10 or more years to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Depositor Education and Awareness (DEA) Fund.

RBI has taken various steps to reduce the quantum of unclaimed deposits and return such deposits to rightful claimants, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat K Karad said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.

As per the RBI's direction, banks have been advised to display the list of unclaimed deposits in accounts that are inactive or inoperative for ten years or more on the banks' websites and find the whereabouts of the customers, or legal heirs in case of deceased account holders, in order to return unclaimed deposits to the rightful claimants.

RBI asked banks to formulate board approved policy on classification of unclaimed deposits; and put in place a grievance redressal mechanism for quick resolution of complaints, record keeping and periodic review of unclaimed deposit accounts, he said.

A centralised web portal, Unclaimed Deposits Gateway to Access Information (UDGAM), to search unclaimed deposits across multiple banks, has been set up by RBI, he said.

Further, he said, RBI has launched campaign '100 Days 100 Pays' for banks to trace and settle the top 100 unclaimed deposits of every bank in each district within a 100-day timeframe, commencing from June 1, 2023 to September 8, 2023.

At the end of campaign, major 31 banks (which accounted for more than 90% of unclaimed deposit balances with the DEA Fund), have refunded Rs 1,432.68 crore in the campaign.

Replying to another question, Karad said quoting RBI data, gross non-performing assets (NPAs), including those associated with Prime Minister Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), of scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) was Rs 9,33,779 crore (gross NPA ratio of 9.07%) as on March 31, 2019, Rs 8,96,082 crore (gross NPA ratio of 8.21%) as on March 31, 2020 and Rs 8,35,051 crore (gross NPA ratio of 7.33%) as on March 31, 2021.

It further came down to Rs 7,42,397 crore (gross NPA ratio of 5.82%) as on March 31, 2022, and Rs 5,71,544 crore (gross NPA ratio of 3.87%) as on March 31, 2023, he said.

It indicates that gross NPAs in scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) have been declining over the years, he added.

Further, he said, slippage ratios (fresh addition to NPAs as percentage of standard advances at the beginning of the year) of SCBs have declined from 3.74% in financial year 2019-20 to 2.77% in 2020-21 to 2.74% in 2021-22 and to 1.78% in 2022-23.

In a separate reply, Karad said, as per RBI data on frauds (Rs 1 lakh and above) reported by SCBs under the categories -- "Cards/internet - credit cards, cards/internet - debit cards and cards/internet - internet banking- based on date of reporting", during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 are 3,596 and 6,659, respectively.

In the context of the evolution of overall digital ecosystem, the number of frauds reported is significantly outweighed by the substantial increase in the number of total digital payment transactions during the same period.

Ministry of Home Affairs has informed that 'police' and 'public order' are state subjects as per the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India.

States/UTs are primarily responsible for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of crimes including cyber frauds through their Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs), he said.

The central government supplements the efforts of state governments through advisories and financial assistance under various schemes for capacity building, he added.