Don’t panic, your monies are still safe – Financial expert

Financial Expert and Executive Director at Financial Literacy Foundation in Africa Dr Richmond Frimpong has stated that the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) directives concerning unclaimed Balances & Dormant Accounts is part of steps put in place to safeguard depositors’ funds.

Dr Frimpong explained that some people use their relatives as next of kin but do not tell them about it and this has resulted in accounts being dormant and unclaimed funds going up.

“For a depositor, you shouldn’t be worried at all this is good news for you. In Ghana, for example, people open accounts, current and savings and most of the time research has shown that people write people’s name as beneficiaries but never mention it to them. So in many instances when those people are no more, nobody can trace such account and that becomes an inactive account and its eventually dormant,” he said in an interview with Joy Business.

He urged that people should go back and visit their banks to check their accounts to see if everything is fine with the accounts.

Meanwhile, commenting on why some banks have been rejecting the new voter's ID card in the past few days, Dr Frimpong said “BoG should take up that issue and look at it carefully because the Voter ID card was used in the just-ended elections and it is valid enough for transactions at the bank.”