The department of financial services (DFS) under the Union ministry of finance has launched a common landing portal for unclaimed financial assets, providing citizens with a single platform to search for unclaimed bank deposits, insurance claims, shares, dividends and mutual fund investments spread across the financial ecosystem.
The portal, developed in collaboration with the PSB Alliance, is accessible at
www.unclaimedassetsportal.in and aims to simplify the process of tracing and reclaiming dormant or unclaimed financial assets.
The platform was launched by DFS secretary M Nagaraju during a review meeting of public sector banks held last week.
According to the finance ministry, the portal serves as a unified gateway that connects users to various search facilities maintained by banks, insurance companies, mutual funds and other financial institutions. By bringing these services together under one umbrella, the government hopes to improve accessibility and reduce the complexity often associated with locating forgotten or unclaimed financial assets.
The initiative forms part of the nationwide ‘Your Money, Your Right’ campaign being implemented by the DFS in coordination with financial sector regulators, banks and other stakeholders. The campaign focuses on raising awareness, helping citizens trace unclaimed assets and facilitating their return to rightful owners.
Speaking at the launch, Mr Nagaraju said the portal would significantly improve citizen convenience by providing access to multiple search facilities through a single platform. He added that the initiative would strengthen ongoing efforts to reconnect individuals and families with financial assets that belong to them but remain unclaimed due to various reasons.
The finance ministry said the common landing portal marks an important step towards creating a more transparent, accessible and citizen-centric financial ecosystem. It is expected to make information on unclaimed assets easier to access while encouraging greater public awareness of dormant financial holdings.
Unclaimed financial assets often arise when bank accounts remain inactive for extended periods, insurance claims go unclaimed, dividends remain unclaimed, or investors lose track of their investments in shares and mutual funds. Such assets are spread across multiple institutions, making it difficult for beneficiaries to locate them.
By providing a single point of access, the government expects the portal to reduce these challenges and increase the likelihood that individuals will recover their rightful funds.
The ministry said the initiative aligns with the broader vision of Viksit Bharat 2047, as greater financial inclusion, empowerment and trust in the financial system are essential components of the country's long-term development agenda.
Officials believe the portal will not only help citizens recover unclaimed wealth but also strengthen confidence in the financial sector by making information more transparent and easier to access.
With the launch of the portal, citizens can now begin searching for unclaimed deposits, insurance proceeds, shares, dividends, and mutual fund investments through a single digital platform, rather than navigating multiple institutional websites.
This litigation and years of sustained advocacy pushed RBI to launch the UDGAM (unclaimed deposits-gateway to access information) portal. Through its report,
Challenges in Transmission of Assets to Nominees and Legal Heirs, Moneylife Foundation has consistently highlighted how banks routinely flout RBI’s own rules by failing to publish lists of unclaimed accounts, demanding excessive documentation and delaying even legitimate claims. These obstacles disproportionately affect senior citizens and legal heirs, leaving families struggling to recover funds that are rightfully theirs.
In October this year, the
Supreme Court issued notice in a PIL filed by Aakash Goel, a Delhi-based activist, engineer and entrepreneur, seeking the creation of a comprehensive legal and institutional framework to track and return over ₹3.5 lakh crore in unclaimed financial assets to their rightful owners.
With the new notice in Mr Goel’s petition, the issue of unclaimed assets has once again come under judicial scrutiny. The responses of the government and regulators will determine whether the Court restricts itself to incremental disclosures or pushes for a comprehensive statutory framework. Either way, the matter has brought fresh focus to a problem that has quietly grown into one of the largest pools of locked-up household savings in India.
At present, individuals seeking to recover dormant assets must use separate mechanisms: RBI's UDGAM portal for bank deposits, SEBI's MITRA (mutual fund investment tracing and retrieval assistant) platform for securities, Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India(IRDAI)'s Bima Bharosa for insurance, the ministry of corporate affairs' (MCA) investor education and protection fund (IEPF) and various EPFO (employees' provident fund organisation) systems for provident fund (PF) claims.
The government launched a three-month nationwide awareness initiative in October called ‘Aapki Poonji Aapka Adhikar’ (your money, your right), spearheaded by Union minister of finance Nirmala Sitharaman. This campaign, running through December, involves coordination among the DFS, RBI, IRDAI, SEBI, and Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (IEPFA).
Through outreach camps and facilitation efforts organised across districts, the campaign has already helped return ₹1,887 crore to legitimate claimants and their nominees. While Mr Nagaraju acknowledged these figures may seem modest, he emphasised they represent the initial impact of awareness building, with expectations of many more families coming forward.
You may also want to read...
