I am Pakistani and was on vacations back home, but unfortunately I got sick and was not able to return within the 6 months period and my visa got cancelled in September 2015.
My sponsor is trying to get a visa for me, but couldn’t get it for restrictions on Pakistanis despite having all the police certificates with my application.
Anyway, my question is about my bank accounts. I have 3 accounts in different banks. My question is what will happen to my accounts and money?
Some of my accounts are already in dormant status, will there be any fine or any serious action be taken towards my accounts?
I know I can give a Power of Attorney to someone to withdraw all the money and close my account, but if I don’t do this, what will happen?
Name withheld
Answer: No, nothing will happen to your accounts. These go into a “dormant” status if there is no movement in the account for over six months. After the six months (one year in some banks), a dormant account fee of KD 2 per month will be collected by the bank. A nominal fee (normally KD 5) is required to reactivate the account. An account becomes unclaimed after 5 years.
So, you won’t have to pay more than KD 2 a month but you better get your money out (by giving a power of attorney to a friend and also at the same time issuing instructions directly to the bank) before it becomes “unclaimed”, which will result in a longer procedure because the branch where you hold the account then “surrenders” the money and the account to its head office.
Please remember that to reactivate a dormant account you have to issue instructions to the branch which has your account. By the way, if any of your accounts are not dormant you can resort to online banking and transfer the money to a friend’s account … it will save you a lot of hassle.
Source: Arab Times