CB safeguards - money/property in banks

The Central Bank has issued instructions to all banks to submit a report of all abandoned property including items in the bank's safe custody of customers to safeguard their money/property in banks.

Under the Banking Act Part 6 Section 72-76, abandoned property is defined as any account not in operation for the last 10 years while for the items in safe custody the time period has been specified as three years.

Therefore, this is an implementation of the provisions of the Banking Act and many other countries also have similar provisions. At this stage of implementation, the Central Bank has only specified the format to report the information to the Monetary Board of the Central Bank.

This is the first step. Once this is completed, the next stage will be, if decided, to instruct the banks to transfer funds lying in those accounts to the Central Bank if approved by the Finance Minister or let the banks to keep it themselves as it is now.

(SG)