The RBI has been taking technology aided initiatives  to help customers have power over their money and find lost deposits by expanding the UDGAM database. This is used to locate and claim forgotten deposits across banks. On a recent Thursday, an expansion was made and another twenty-three banks were added to the portal to take the tally to  thirty one, signifying a great advancement in streamlining recovery of unclaimed money.

The initial launch of the UDGAM portal was in August, with only seven banks participating. It was like introducing the first stage of centralization and digitization of the search for unclaimed deposits. Such deposits are all too often ‘slept on’ in dormant accounts like savings accounts, fixed deposits and other instruments of the type. The expansion has enabled the UDGAM portal to capture around 90% of unclaimed deposits in the Indian banking system.

More prominently, widely used  private sector banks such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, and IndusInd Bank are included, which indicates the desire to make unclaimed funds accessible to a wider population. This is the combined efforts of public and private banks aimed at ensuring that all the forgotten/unclaimed deposits do not remain unclaimed but become easily retrievable, and reachable to its legitimate claimants.

UDGAM is an all in one platform where people wanting to find out about their unclaimed deposits can locate the same easily and subsequently claim them. The necessity for such a platform is evident in a country where public sector banks transferred approximately Rs 35,000 crore in unclaimed deposits to the RBI by February 2023.

 UDGAM portals aim at reducing such time lag through an easy-to-use platform where clients can look up their forgotten accounts in numerous financial institutions simultaneously. This lowers the previous administrative burden of following up unclaimed deposits in numerous banks thereby saving considerable time and effort.

This initiative is important beyond its mere sense of convenience. The UDGAM portal of the RBI indicates an important move of making Indian banking more transparent, efficient and accessible. The initiative encompasses more banks while promoting easier access to unclaimed deposits to empower individuals as well as encourage financial literacy and responsible financial behavior. The successful launch of the UDGAM portal shows how RBI is leveraging technology to improve customers’ banking experience, making sure your money is accessible and recoverable.