Dividends are the excessive profits generated by the company which the company has decided to distribute among its shareholders. Many of the companies listed in India declare dividends multiple times in a year namely interim or final dividends.
For shares held in demat form and if the correct bank details are updated under the demat account, the dividends are transferred through direct bank transfer in the bank account of the holder linked with the demat account, you can also provide an ECS mandate separately to the company to ask for credit of the dividends in a separate bank account.
Whereas, if the shares are held in physical form or if the bank details are not updated in the respective demat account the physical cheques pertaining to the dividend amount are sent to the registered address of the shareholder. If the same is not claimed then the same is termed as unclaimed.
The dividends are now moved to a separate bank account kept by the company and can be claimed whenever by investors if the aforementioned dividend remains unclaimed for two months.
As per the companies act, any dividend that is unclaimed for a span of 7 years must be transferred to the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority within a span of 60 days from the AGM of the company.
How to find unclaimed shares and dividends?
One can connect with the respective company or their registrar agents to check on the unclaimed dividends under their holdings, you can also use our unique search platform to find if there are any unclaimed shares that you have no track of or which have been transferred to the IEPF Authority.
What is the total amount of unclaimed dividends?
In addition to interim and final dividends, which are declared by different companies on different occasions during the year, the company may also choose to declare additional dividends. The entire amount of unclaimed dividends believed to be pending with the company and the IEPF Authority is far above Rs. 5000 crores.
Additionally, there are now significantly more unclaimed dividends due to the growing demand for KYC updates and the freezing of bank accounts and demat accounts.
How do recover these investments?
If you have found holdings on our platform above, the holdings are the one that is transferred to the IEPF Authority and reflects the current value of the holdings as of the date and does not include the unclaimed dividends under the holdings.
If you don’t know anything about investments, you may quickly click on the investment details tab, pay the necessary finder’s fee, and get the details of the holding sent to your email. After that, you can decide to continue using our services for investment recovery, in which case we’ll handle the entire process from start to finish and only bother you for signatures.
Who to connect to know the status of unclaimed dividends?
The Registrar and transfer agents (RTA) of a company are the key persons who are responsible for the record-keeping and maintaining of records for all the shareholders and their respective corporate actions, you can find the details of the RTA of the company on BSE or NSE website and also on the respective companies website as well.
When can you claim these investments?
You can claim unclaimed dividends or shares at any time as there is currently no set deadline set by the government.