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Nearly every country has banking regulations regarding the manner in which inactive savings accounts are managed by a financial institution. The terms used to describe these accounts include the words "inactive," "dormant," "unclaimed property", "inoperative". Regardless of the terms used by the various central banks, the financial institution has a fiduciary responsibility to manage these funds in certain ways from account holder notification to turning the funds over to an unclaimed property account generally management by the region's regulatory agency.
Assumptions:
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Savings account does not have deposit or withdrawal for a predetermined period of time, in this example, we'll use 1 year.
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The account moves to an inactive status
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The account continues to receive interest, if applicable. Interest postings do not activate the account
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The customer is contacted to activate the account
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The customer has no reply - the account moves to dormant status at a set point in time, we'll use 2 years.
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The financial institution has the option to apply an inactive account fee (this does not activate the account)
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At a period of time dictated by the country, the remaining inactive account balance may have to be escheated to a government agency that handles unclaimed property. This varies by country.
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