HKMA circular on handling of dormant accounts and unclaimed deposits

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Authored by: Simon Deane and Natalie Chan

A circular issued by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) on 18 November 2021 sets out his expectations on authorised institutions (AIs) as regards the handling of dormant accounts and unclaimed deposits of customers. AIs are expected to take a risk-based and proportionate approach in handling dormant accounts, taking into account factors such as the age of the account holder, the amount left unclaimed and the length of the dormancy.

Some notable suggested measures include the following:

• Educate the customers to avoid having inactive and dormant accounts and facilitate recovery of lost accounts with due diligence.
• Monitor the inactive and dormant accounts to ensure that there is no unauthorised transaction and update the relevant customers periodically.
• Authenticate the identity of the customers upon reactivation of the inactive and dormant accounts.
• Ascertain the status of the account holders of those unclaimed deposit accounts with the Immigration Department for possible deceased account holders and handle any unclaimed deposits according to the relevant law.

For more information, please see here.

Key Contacts

Simon Deane

Consultant | Banking and Finance

Email or call +852 2825 9209