Bank accounts with no transactions for more than 3 years may be closed

The State Bank is collecting comments on a draft amendment and supplement to Decree 52 on non-cash payments. According to the draft, there are many legal payment accounts but customers forget them, no longer need to use them and do not generate transactions for a long time. Others are anonymous or impersonated accounts opened by criminals using old, fake documents.

According to current regulations, payment accounts are closed when the account owner requests, dies, violates prohibited acts… For organizational customers, this is done when they terminate operations.

“In case an agreement cannot be reached with the account holder, there is no mechanism to handle it,” the State Bank said.

Therefore, this agency proposes to supplement the regulation that banks can close accounts that have not had transactions for 3 years or more, unless there is a prior agreement with the customer. After closing the account, the bank monitors the remaining balance to refund when requested by the legal beneficiary.

The State Bank said the timeline is 3 years or more based on the experience of some countries. For example, in the United States, accounts that have been inactive for 3-5 years are considered “dormant” accounts and the balance is transferred to the state government to manage and store as unclaimed property. Customers can get their money back through the state’s unclaimed property agency.

In the UAE, accounts with no transactions for more than 3 years are also placed on a separate list for monitoring and management. After 5 years of “hibernation”, the bank considers closing the account. All unclaimed balances are transferred to the country’s central bank. To receive it back, guests need to go through procedures to prove their identity.

According to a report by the State Bank earlier this year, nearly 87% of Vietnamese adults (over 18 years old) own a bank account, and 33% of them have had savings deposits in the past year. The number of non-cash payment transactions each year increased by nearly 59%, more than double the plan.

The comprehensive financial strategy aims to have 95% of people aged 15 and older own payment accounts by 2030. Along with that, cashless payments are 30 times higher than GDP, and about 30% of adults save money.