KUALA LUMPUR, April 20 — Putrajaya will develop a new app to ease the process of tracing and reclaiming unclaimed money, Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan reportedly said.

The Star reported the deputy finance minister acknowledging that the process to retrieve the money may be tedious as it requires the submission of multiple supporting documents, but the measure is crucial for security reasons.

“We understand that the public wants a more seamless experience, hence an app is in the pipeline,” he was quoted as saying, but did not elaborate on the timeline of the app launch.

Currently, the eGUMIS portal is available for the public to check and submit their application to retrieve unclaimed money.

Only the rightful owner of the unclaimed money is authorised to retrieve the unclaimed funds; third parties agents are not permitted to do so, as confirmed by Ahmad Maslan.

He reportedly said that the online portal had received approximately 50,000 queries since the Accountant-General's Department (AGD) made the announcement in October of last year that there is RM11.6 billion worth of unclaimed money belonging to the public.

“The biggest portion of the unclaimed money is from dormant bank accounts. A lot of the time, people tend to change their addresses and phone numbers, and they become untraceable for the bank to remind them about money in their accounts.

“However, rest assured that the unclaimed money is kept safe because it is our responsibility towards public trust,” he was quoted as saying.

The AGD was also looking to amend the Unclaimed Money Act 1965 to improve the unclaimed money process, including lowering the period of transfer from the current 15 to 10 years, he told The Star.

Last week, the deputy finance minister told reporters that out of the RM14.1 billion received by the AGD from companies or firms in accordance with Section 8 of the Act from 1977 until last month, about RM3.2 billion in savings, accounts, insurance, and deposits, had been returned to their rightful owners. - malaymail