Forgot about an old bank account? Find your money!

Have an old bank account that you never actually closed? Or maybe a relative died and you’re unsure if all their accounts were located to be given to those mentioned in their will? Luckily there is a simple way to search for money left in unclaimed bank accounts.

Canadian banks will hold the balance on a dormant account for 10 years, then they transfer the outstanding balance to the Bank of Canada. The Bank of Canada will then maintain custody of the funds for an additional thirty years for accounts under $1,000, balances of $1,000 or more will be held for 100 years.

The Bank of Canada will hold onto a variety of Canadian dollar accounts from Canadian banks, including:

• deposit accounts
• bank drafts
• certified cheques
• deposit receipts
• money orders
• traveler’s cheques

If you find that there is an account that you may have a claim to, you will need to fill out the claim form and provide proof of your entitlement through either your own signature, identification and a will, if applicable.

Wondering if there are really that many accounts that are unclaimed? At the end of 2008, the Bank of Canada reported that they are holding approximately 1,023,000 accounts with a total value of about $351 million!

I searched every possible name variation of me and other family members, unfortunately I didn’t find anything. After you search, if you find out that you may have money to claim, please leave a comment to tell us about your find!

Avoid owning multiple savings bank accounts

A large number of people own savings accounts in several banks. Some are inherited from their previous jobs while some are opened to avoid tax deduction at source on fixed deposits. As the minimum average quarterly balance required to maintain these savings accounts increases in private sector banks, owing multiple savings accounts become a costly affair.

An increasing number of banks have hiked the average quarterly balance (AQB) in metros to Rs. 10,000; while most of them have the minimum AQB amount as Rs. 5000 in smaller cities. Thus, a lot of customer’s money is blocked to keep their savings accounts alive. For example, consider the case of a person having 5 savings accounts of AQB Rs. 10,000 each!

Secondly, having too many savings accounts and the need to maintain minimum AQB in each one of them pose the danger of not being able to meet the minimum AQB in one or two accounts, which leads to penalty charges. This is usually a huge amount in private sector banks (ICICI Bank charges Rs. 750 + Service Charge) as a penalty for not maintaining minimum AQB.

But above all, earning a paltry interest rate of 3.5% for your money in savings account, when you can earn a much higher interest of around 10% in Fixed Deposits, would not be a great idea. That is, if you have less number of savings accounts, less would be the money needed for maintaining minimum AQB in those and more would be the money available for Fixed Deposits.

“If you notice that your savings account balance is over Rs 50,000, normally you would think of transferring some money to a fixed deposit. But if there is Rs 20,000 in multiple accounts, the thought many not cross your mind”, says a financial advisor, which is very true. So it’s better to own as less savings accounts as possible.