Your family may have money sitting in a bank they forgot about.
A closed-down account. A fixed deposit that matured and was never withdrawn. Shares bought decades ago. When nobody claims them for ten years, banks hand the money to the RBI — and it waits there. Indefinitely. For you.
Three separate places money goes missing
They're run by different bodies and don't talk to each other. Check all three — a family that has money in one often has it in another, for the same reason: somebody died, moved, or simply forgot.
UDGAM — RBI
Savings accounts, current accounts, fixed deposits untouched for 10 years. Covers 30 banks, about 90% of all unclaimed deposit value. Search by name plus one ID.
IEPF
If shares paid dividends nobody collected for seven straight years, the shares and the money move to the Investor Education and Protection Fund. Common with inherited share certificates nobody knew existed.
Unclaimed Assets Portal
The government's newer combined search — bank deposits, insurance policies, shares and mutual funds in one place. Start here if you don't know what you're looking for.
Searching UDGAM, step by step
Fifteen minutes. You need a mobile number and one ID document.
Register with your mobile number
Go to udgam.rbi.org.in and sign up. An OTP comes to your phone. This is the RBI's own site — check the address bar says udgam.rbi.org.in and nothing else.
Enter the account holder's name
Not necessarily your name. Your father's, your mother's, a grandparent's. Then pick a bank, and give one identifier.
Try the name every way it was ever written
This is where most searches fail. Old bank records carry initials, expansions, misspellings, maiden names, and inconsistent surname order. A nil result for one spelling is not a nil result. Try each variation separately.
Note the UDRN if something appears
A match returns a UDRN — an Unclaimed Deposit Reference Number. Write it down. It identifies the deposit without exposing the account number.
Claim from the bank — not from UDGAM
UDGAM finds money. It doesn't release it. Take the UDRN to that bank's branch with your ID and proof of your connection to the account holder. The bank runs its own claim process.
If the account holder has died
This is the most common situation — and the hardest. A large share of that ₹78,000 crore belongs to people who are no longer alive to claim it.
Finding the deposit is the easy half. Proving you are entitled to it is the real work, and it's the same problem as inheriting land: you must document the chain from the person named on the account down to you.
| What you'll be asked for | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Death certificate of the account holder | Municipality or gram panchayat where the death was registered. Your state's eDistrict portal may issue it online. |
| Proof you are the legal heir | Legal heir certificate (tehsildar / revenue office) or succession certificate (civil court, for larger amounts or where there's disagreement). |
| Your own KYC | Aadhaar, PAN. |
| Nomination, if one was made | The bank holds this. If your relative nominated someone, that person is paid first — this can be much quicker. |
| Consent of other heirs | If there are several of you, banks usually want the others to sign a no-objection. |
One honest warning: if the amount is small and there is no nomination, a succession certificate can cost more in court fees, lawyer's fees and time than the deposit is worth. Find out the amount before you commit to the process.
Be careful of
Anyone who offers to "recover" your money for a percentage
The search is free and takes fifteen minutes. The claim is made at your own bank branch. There is no step that requires an agent. If someone wants a cut, they are selling you something you can do yourself this afternoon.
Don't take our word for it — this is the IEPF Authority, on its own homepage:
"IEPFA does not support any middleman, broker, or agent for refund claims."
"The refund process through IEPFA is simple, easy, and free of cost."
"Engaging middlemen may lead to claim discrepancies or rejections."
"Claimants should report immediately if approached or assured by brokers/middlemen
regarding claim refunds."
— iepf.gov.in, read July 2026. A government body does not repeat itself four times on its own front page without a reason.
Any site that isn't udgam.rbi.org.in
Unclaimed money is exactly the sort of promise scam sites are built around. The RBI's portal is udgam.rbi.org.in. IEPF is iepf.gov.in. If a site looks similar but the address differs by even a character, leave.
Anyone asking for a fee to release your own money
Banks do not charge you to return your deposit. A demand for "processing" or "clearance" fees before payout is the shape of an advance-fee fraud. If it has already happened, call 1930 immediately — the first hour matters most.
Sharing your UDRN or account details with anyone who contacts you
You approach the bank. The bank does not approach you about this. An unsolicited call about your unclaimed deposit is not the bank.
If the bank stalls
It happens — especially with old accounts and branches that have merged. You have escalation routes, in this order.
The bank's own grievance cell
Put it in writing, keep the acknowledgement, note the date. Everything below depends on having asked properly first.
RTI
Public sector banks answer to the RTI Act. ₹10, and a 30-day statutory deadline to respond. Remarkably effective at unsticking a file that has been "under process" for months.