There has been a 28 per cent annual increase in unclaimed deposits with the banks to Rs 42,270 crore as on March 2023, Parliament was informed on Tuesday. Compared to unclaimed deposits of Rs 32,934 crore with public and private banks in FY22, the amount increased to Rs 42,272 crore at the end of March 2023, an increase of 28 percent.
As much as Rs 36,185 crore unclaimed deposits were with public sector banks while Rs 6,087 crore were with private sector banks at the end of March 2023.
Banks send unclaimed deposits of account holders lying in their accounts for 10 or more years to RBI’s Depositor Education and Awareness Fund (DEA).
RBI has taken various steps to reduce the amount of unclaimed deposits and return such deposits to legitimate claimants, said Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat K Karad in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.
As per the direction of the RBI, banks have been advised to display the list of unclaimed deposits in accounts which are inactive or non-functional for ten years or more on the websites of the banks and find the whereabouts of the customers, or legal heirs in case of a deceased account . owners, to return unclaimed deposits to the rightful claimants.
RBI has asked banks to formulate a board-approved policy on classification of unclaimed deposits; and to set up a grievance redressal mechanism for speedy resolution of grievances, maintenance of records and periodic audit of unclaimed deposit accounts, he said.
A centralized web portal, Unclaimed Deposits Gateway to Access Information (UDGAM), to search for unclaimed deposits across multiple banks, has been set up by RBI, he said.
Further, he said, RBI has launched a ‘100 Days 100 Payments’ campaign for banks to track and settle the top 100 unclaimed deposits of each bank in each district within a 100-day time frame, starting from June 1, 2023 to 8 September 2023.
At the end of campaign, top 31 banks (which comprised more than 90 percent of unclaimed deposit balances with the DEA Fund), repaid Rs 1,432.68 crore in the campaign.
Responding to another question, Karad said citing RBI data, gross non-performing assets (NPAs), including those associated with Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Program (PMEGP), of scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) were Rs 9,33,779 crore. (Gross NPA ratio). of 9.07 per cent) as on March 31, 2019, Rs 8,96,082 (Gross NPA ratio of 8.21 per cent) as on March 31, 2020 and Rs 8,35,051 (Gross NPA ratio of 7 .33 percent) as in March. 31, 2021.
It further declined to Rs 7,42,397 crore (Gross NPA ratio of 5.82 per cent) as on March 31, 2022, and to Rs 5,71,544 crore (Gross NPA ratio of 3.87 per cent) as on 31 from March 2023, he said. .
It indicates that gross NPAs in SCBs have come down over the years, he added.
Further, he said, slip ratios (fresh addition to NPAs as a percentage of standard advances at the beginning of the year) of SCBs have come down from 3.74 per cent in the financial year 2019-20 to 2.77 per cent in 2020-21 to 2.74 percent. in 2021-22 and to 1.78 per cent in 2022-23.
In a separate reply, Karad said, according to Reserve Bank of India (RBI), data on frauds (Rs 1 lakh and above) reported by Scheduled Commercial Banks under the categories — “Cards/internet – credit cards, cards/internet – debit cards and cards /internet – internet banking- based on reporting date”, while the 2021-22 and 2022-23 are 3,596 and 6,659, respectively.
In the context of the development of a general digital ecosystem, the number of frauds reported is significantly outweighed by the large increase in the number of total digital payment transactions during the same period.
Ministry of Home Affairs informed that “police” and “public order” are state subjects under 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.
He added that the central government is complementing the efforts of state governments with advice and financial assistance under various schemes for capacity building.