In The Brief’s 22 June edition, it was reported that commercial banks are sitting with unallocated funds of clients due to various reasons.
This story reminded me of the time I lost out on a dividend declaration and a tax refund because I forgot to update the banking details I had provided to these institutions when I changed banks. I was required to switch banks as a pre-condition of a home loan approval and amid the change, I did not think of the implications this would have on my other finances.
Well, here is the story: In the year that I changed banks everything seemed fine until I started wondering about returns on my investments in shares. I had hoped to receive a dividend income from the company I invested in at least twice a year but to my surprise, I received none.
It was not until one night that I decided to look up the financial statements of the company to assess its performance. That is when I realised that they had declared dividends, twice that year!
One can just imagine how furious I was, thinking they must have forgotten about me. After numerous calls to try and establish the error, the lady I spoke to asked if I could confirm my banking details and that is when it hit me that they had paid the money into the closed account. After filling in a few forms, I received the money.
After that incident, I never actually stopped to think about who else is affected by this bank move. It was not until recently after I completed a tax audit that I noticed that my Integrated Tax Administration System profile shows that I have been refunded my last three years’ worth of tax rebates.
This came as a surprise because I never received this money. Luckily, I remembered the dividend instance and checked which bank account was linked to ITAS. It was then that I realised that they too paid the money into the inactive account.
This issue is more recent, and I am yet to resolve it with the Namibia Revenue Agency.
Following these instances, I have created a checklist where I list all bank accounts, investments, and insurance and I keep track of the bank details attached to each investment as well as beneficiaries listed and insurance. I have committed to revisiting this checklist at least once a year.
My question to you is, have you had multiple accounts at different banks? What happened to those accounts? Did you close them, or did the bank automatically put an inactive status after a period of inactivity? If the answer to any of those is yes, you might want to make a phone call or two because you too could just be part of the Namibians making up the N$485m unallocated funds.
*Klestina Kauhondamwa is a Chartered Accountant by profession
