How banks handle abandoned accounts and cards

Nowadays, an individual can own many bank accounts, some of which are not used, so how do banks handle these accounts?

Each bank has different policies for checking accounts, ATM cards or credit cards that are inactive for a certain period of time. The State Bank allows banks to apply their own fee policies, as long as they are public and included in the agreement when opening the account.

With ATM cards, when not in use, cardholders can still be charged fees such as annual fees, SMS Banking service fees, bank account management fees, etc.

In addition, banks have regulations to lock cards for accounts that have not made any transactions for a long time, usually after 6 - 18 months when the account has no balance.

Specifically, Agribank will temporarily lock the customer's payment account if the payment account has a balance lower than the prescribed minimum balance and no transactions have occurred within 12 months. For temporarily locked accounts that are inactive for more than 36 months, Agribank will close the customer's account.

Meanwhile, BIDV stipulates closing a customer's payment account when the account balance is 0 VND and there are no transactions for 6 consecutive months for VND accounts, 12 months for foreign currency accounts (except for some products separately agreed with customers).

In addition to closing accounts, BIDV terminates services connected to those accounts.

Similarly, VietinBank and Vietcombank also have regulations to close customer accounts when the balance is 0 VND and there are no continuous transactions for 12 months.

Most banks have regulations to temporarily lock or close accounts when the balance reaches 0 and there are no transactions for a long time. (Illustration photo)

Techcombank will also close payment accounts that have not generated active transactions for a minimum of 12 consecutive months or more, and whose balance (after paying all fees) is less than the minimum balance of (VND 50,000/ USD 5/ EUR 5).

ACB Bank will automatically close unused accounts without charging any fees. Customers who want to cancel their accounts and cards must pay an additional 20,000 VND.

At Sacombank, within 6 months, the card account of customers using this bank's services will be in a state of 0 VND. If no transactions are made, the bank will stop accounting and will not charge additional fees.

Similarly, TPBank accounts with no transactions will go into "sleep" state when the balance is not enough to pay the fees.

Thus, most banks have regulations to temporarily lock or close accounts when the balance is 0 or below the minimum level, and there are no transactions for a period of 6 months to 3 years.

Temporarily locking or closing a payment account that has not been used for a long time helps the bank avoid management costs and unnecessary problems.

Source