According to some estimates there are more than a crore savings bank account which are not operating in the last 10 years. Now most of the people have more than two or three bank accounts, but they uses only one or two. Here are some of the important things you should know when you don’t operate your savings bank account.
1. If you don’t use your bank account continuously for more than 24 months, according to Reserve Bank rules your account becomes dormant. When your account becomes dormant you cannot withdraw your money through phone banking, internet banking or through ATM.
2. At the same time, different banks handles the dormant accounts in different ways. HSBC and HDFC bank makes your bank account first as inactive account, if you don’t use it for a year and it becomes a dormant account if you don’t do any transactions upto two years. ICCI bank makes your saving bank account inactive if it’s not used for 15 months. Some banks charges extra fees to make your inactive or dormant accounts operative. In order to make your inactive account operative you have go to the bank directly and do some transaction,while for the dormant account, you have to give an application form and should give new proof of identity.
3. If your savings bank account doesn’t have the required minimum balance consecutively for three months, then the banks can close your account without informing you.
4. If your cheques bounces without sufficient money in your account in a row for more than three times, banks can close your account.
Source: Smart Money column by C S Ranjith in Malayala Manorama, March 24.
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