ISLAMABAD – Startling revelations have surfaced regarding unclaimed bankaccounts in Pakistan.
It has been revealed that thousands of Pakistanis have left theirhard-earned money unclaimed in different banks accounts.
State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has issued a public notice recently askingbanking customers to contact bank branches if they want to withdraw theirmoney which has been left unattended and unclaimed in the accounts ofdifferent commercial banks.
Unclaimed accounts are those which have not been used for many years bytheir owners and their deposits were being maintained by the banks. First,the banks carried the amount under unclaimed category and then transferredto the central bank. It means if someone wants to withdraw his money, hecan contact the designated department of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
Besides a section of people who left their money for no special reason,there are some people who left the country and some who even left the worldthough their money could be withdrawn by their relatives as per procedures.
One of the senior journalists in Karachi, Ahmed Saeed, switched variousorganizations over the period of a decade and switched five bank accounts,one after another, based on the policy of the employers to keep a specificbank for a salary account.
He left thousands of Rupees in the accounts of different banks but did nottouch them for many years. Similarly, there are hundreds of thousands ofcustomers of banks who left money in their account. Some left an amount ofRs. 10 and some left an amount of Rs. 10,000.
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It is pertinent to mention here that if a customer does not maketransactions from his or her bank accounts in a 6 month to 1 year period,the account is termed as dormant by the banks but it can be opened with anapplication. Though if bank accounts are not used for many years ordecades, they are declared as unclaimed and the deposits are transferred tothe central bank.
Not only are these deposits maintained in local and foreign currency butother instruments such as pay order, demand deposit, time deposit, demanddraft and etc. These were not attributed to any of the government’sdepartments nor to the legal affairs.
SBP recalled unclaimed deposits and unclaimed banking instruments from allcommercial banks and DFIs under Section 31 of Banking Companies Ordinance,1962.
It has provided complete details of unclaimed deposits and banks accountsof each bank in detail including account deposits, its number and itsowner, which can be viewed here. link
Surprisingly, there are hundreds of people in every bank who left theiramount unclaimed and let their banks utilize it. Not only banks butorganizations and corporations also left their amount unclaimed in theirbanks accounts.
