Central Bank to take over inactive accounts in banks

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 September 2009, 15:35 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Central Bank Friday announced that savings and safe deposits that have not been maintained as active accounts in banks over ten years will be taken over by the Central Bank soon. “Central Bank would investigate into such accounts being held at all state and private banks and convert the value to be held by the Central Bank until such time the owners prefer to reclaim their assets,” a Central Bank official told media.

“It is not an attempt to take over savings of people and anyone with a savings or safe deposit account should reactivate it with the bank in question to avoid the Central Bank measure,” the official further said.

“This is simply a security measure,” he noted.

He also assured that any original depositors were free to reclaim their money from the Central Bank and this measure would only be implemented on accounts that have not had any transactions for over ten years.