The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has given new guidelines to commercial banks on how to operate dormant accounts that have received no deposit or withdrawal for over one year.
The new guideline is contained in the CBN circular to commercial banks issued recently.
According to the CBN, it shall open a pool account to warehouse all remaining funds in dormant savings and current and domiciliary accounts.
NIBSS data reveals there were 191.4 million bank accounts in Nigeria, out of which 133.5 million were active as of December 2021.
By implication, there are 57.9 million inactive bank accounts both savings and current in Nigeria. A report revealed that around N500 billion has been left by account owners in dormant bank accounts as of January 2021.
The CBN said it would invest the warehoused funds in Treasury Bills and other interest-yielding ventures and give the profits to the owners of the accounts upon reactivation of the accounts.
As far as the circular is concerned, the dormant accounts will be reopened and the funds, including interest rates, paid to the owners upon request within two days. Also, the circular directed commercial banks to keep paying interest into dormant accounts and maintain periodic communications with account owners through emails, text messages, and other necessary mediums.
CBN noted that dormant and unclaimed accounts are what fraudsters target, hence the move to warehouse the funds in a joint account known as “Unclaimed Balances Trust Fund Pool Account.
CBN said: “The continuous maintenance of such accounts results in the accumulation of huge unclaimed balances at the disposal of the financial institutions for which the depositors may not be adequately compensated. In addition, dormant and unclaimed balances are increasingly susceptible to fraudulent transactions or abuse.”
The apex bank said it would create a management committee to oversee funds from the accounts and disburse them accordingly. The bank also stated that a bank account should be deemed dormant if it has not done any transactions for one year.
It said: “A bank account shall be classified as dormant if there has been no customer or depositor-initiated transaction in it for one (1) year after the last customer or depositor-initiated transaction.
“The bank shall institute controls consistent with its precautionary policies, including surveillance procedures and 58-level authorization. To make such account active, the customer is to provide satisfactory evidence of account ownership, means of identification, and present place of residence.
“Unclaimed funds shall be categorized as Proceeds of stale local and foreign currency drafts not yet presented for payment by beneficiaries. Funds received from a correspondent bank without sufficient details as to the rightful beneficiary and/or a recall of funds made to the remitting bank to which the Nigerian bank’s account had not been debited; and a judgment debt for which the judgment creditor has not claimed the amount of judgment award.”
The bank said it is backed by the provisions of Section 72 (11) of the bank and other financial institutions to carry out the guideline.
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