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  • Article (2): Criteria for Determining Dormant Accounts and Unclaimed Balances

    • First: Dormant Accounts

      Dormancy is defined at customer level. For dormancy to apply, the customer should not have another active liability account with the same Bank, the current address of the customer is not known and the account does not have any litigations or requirements from other regulatory authorities.

      Any correspondence from the customer or activity in relation to other accounts held with the same Bank shall be considered as evidence that the customer is still active and does not meet the definition of “dormant customer”.

      Customers with asset accounts will be excluded from the purview of dormancy definition.

      Joint accounts should be treated distinctly from individual accounts of their holders (individual/entities). Any activity in joint accounts does not impact dormancy classification in individual accounts held by the joint account holders and vice versa.

      1. An Individual/Corporate savings or call or current account where there has been no transactions (withdrawals or deposits) or non-financial actions (service requests, due diligence, particulars update, etc.) for a period of 3 years from the date of the last transaction on the account, other than transactions initiated by the Bank (such as interest and charges posted by the system or manually), and there has been no communication from the customer (whether written or electronic).
         
      2. A Fixed Term Deposit Account where there is no automatic renewable clause and where the deposit has matured, but neither renewal nor claim request has been made in the past 3 years since the deposit matured (or) where there is an automatic renewable clause, but there is no communication (whether written, electronic or verbal) from the customer within a period of 3 years from the date of first maturity.
         
      3. A closed ended Investment Account or a redeemable Investment Account where there is no communication from the customer for a period of 3 years from final maturity or redemption date, whichever is earlier. An open-ended Investment Account will be treated as Dormant, when the customer’s other accounts have been classified as dormant in accordance with this Regulation. However, the Bank shall liquidate or dispose of assets in the open-ended Investment Account only as per stated terms & conditions of the account.

    • Second: Unclaimed Balances

      • Unclaimed Bankers Cheques, Bank Drafts or Cashiers Orders

        1. Bankers cheques, bank drafts, or cashiers orders, which have been issued at the request of a customer by debit to his/her account, that have not been claimed by the beneficiary and remain unclaimed by the beneficiary or the customer for a period of 1 year (despite the efforts of the Bank to contact the customer).

      • Unclaimed Dividends

        1. Wherever, unclaimed dividend balances are held, the market regulator’s guidelines will govern the unclaimed dividend maintenance and re-claim process.

      • Unclaimed Contents of Safe Deposit Boxes

        1. Notwithstanding the provision of Article 474 of Federal Law No. 18 of 1993 on Commercial Transactions, the dormancy definition shall apply as follows:

          Where charges for a safe deposit box remain outstanding for a period of more than 3 years and the Bank has not received a reply from the Safe Deposit Box tenant, or the tenant has not made alternative arrangements in relation to the Safe Deposit Box.
           
        2. To comply with the above, the customer does not have another active account with the same Bank (liability or assets). Safe Deposit Box operations by nominees is not sufficient for maintaining them as active in status.