As much as €716.6 million is sitting unused in so-called "dormant" accounts in Belgium. This concerns money from bank accounts, insurance contracts and bank vaults whose owners have not come forward, according to figures from the Finance Ministry.
If money sits untouched (no deposits, payments, etc) in a bank account for at least five years and the owner has not been in contact with the bank, a legal procedure is triggered and the bank has to look for the rightful owner.
"If the owner still does not come forward, the money is passed on to the Deposit and Consignment Office (DCK) of the Federal Public Finance Service," spokesperson Florence Angelici told Het Belang van Limburg. If the amount is less than €60, it is automatically transferred to the State treasury.
If it is more than €60, the money will remain in the DCK for 30 years. If after that period it remains unclaimed, the funds are transferred to the treasury. The same principle applies to insurance contracts or bank vaults whose service charges have not been paid for five years.
Withdrawing money from an ATM. Credit: Belga/Jonas Hamers
If the owner (or a relative) does come forward during that period, the DCK will repay that money including interest. This year, nearly 1,000 people discovered they were owed money that had been dormant in a bank account, safe deposit box or insurance contract. In 2023, €13.8 million of dormant money was repaid to its legal owner. In the first quarter of this year, this amount was already over €6.1 million.
But how can so much money be forgotten? Most often this happens when the account holder dies and the heirs are unaware of its existence. "Often these are savings accounts that grandparents have opened for a grandchild without telling them," Angelici explains.
Additionally, there are a lot of accounts belonging to Belgians who have moved abroad but who have not informed the National Registry of their change of address. "It also has to do with carelessness on the part of customers. Some people open an account and just forget about it. Or they don't open letters from the bank."
How to recover your money
People can find out whether they have a dormant account by logging in to the government's MyMinFin website and clicking on the "My payments" tab.
If an amount is displayed there, they can request that money right away, after which the money will be paid out within 30 days.
"Before the Deposit and Consignment Office (DCK) was created, the money used to stay with the bank," said Angelici. "But the new system means that people can simply look online to see if they have a dormant account."
Those without access to MyMinFin can go to slapenderekeningen.be to send the authorities a written request.
