The Bank of Ghana has debunked claims making rounds on social media that persons with dormant accounts will lose their funds if the accounts are moved to the Bank of Ghana after a period of inactivity.
These claims come on the back of a recent directive issued by the Central Bank on unclaimed balances & dormant accounts for banks and specialised deposit-taking institutions.
According to the claims on social media, customers needed to reactivate their dormant accounts as soon as possible, or risk losing their funds when their dormant accounts are transferred to the apex bank or at best endure a tedious process in getting their monies back once it’s transferred to the Bank of Ghana.
But in a new statement issued in response to the claims, the Bank of Ghana assured that no one whose dormant account is transferred to it will lose their funds.
Customers or their legal representatives can make claims for the funds by presenting all relevant documentation.
The Bank of Ghana added that identification and claiming of funds at the Bank of Ghana is not a tedious process.
The Bank of Ghana’s directive on unclaimed balances & dormant accounts for banks and specialised deposit-taking institutions issued a few months back, seeks to ensure that balances in accounts that have been left unattended for over a period of time are managed under a special account, to be referred to as the dormant account register.
The directive by the Bank of Ghana which is pursuant to Section 92 of the Banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, 2016, explained that a dormant account could be a current or savings account with credit balances and their derivatives with no ‘customer-initiated activity’ by the account holder or a third party on the account holder’s behalf for a number of years.
The funds in a dormant account, according to the directive, shall be transferred to the Bank of Ghana after five (5) years of inactivity for continuous protection.
Customers whose accounts fall in this category are encouraged to contact their bankers to reactivate the accounts.
As a proactive measure, the Bank of Ghana’s Directive urges banks and SDIs to contact customers whose accounts are dormant to reactivate such accounts.
The directive, among other things, also added that banks and SDIs will publish accounts that remain dormant for a period of five years on their websites and in two daily newspapers as a means of notifying account holders who may not have reactivated their accounts.
