Explained: How to check unclaimed assets in stocks and mutual funds in Digilocker

The market regulator, Sebi, in order to protect investors’ and to safeguard investor interests, has directed its efforts towards minimizing the creation of Unclaimed Assets (UA) in the securities market.

These measures shall come into effect from April 1, 2025, according to a circular released by Sebi.

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SEBI has implemented several measures which includes stipulation of norms for inactive /dormant accounts and folios, mandating furnishing of contact and bank details by investors, mandating investors to either provide nomination or expressly opt-out from making a nomination, simplification of norms for transmission, and centralized mechanism for reporting demise of investor.

To reduce unidentified unclaimed assets, it is proposed to safeguard the prowess of digital public infrastructure (specifically Digital Locker mechanism i.e. ‘DigiLocker’) and of the KRAs registered with the Board.

Digilocker

DigiLocker is a digital document wallet of the Government of India (GoI), facilitating citizens in obtaining and storing documents like Aadhaar, PAN, Driving Licence, Death Certificate, etc. ‘Issued documents’ in DigiLocker are deemed to be at par with originals.

DigiLocker also provides nomination facility to its users. The nominee/s specified by the user is/are authorised to access the digital information of the user upon the demise of the user.

At SEBI’s instance, a mechanism has been created whereby the DigiLocker automatically notifies the DigiLocker Nominees about the demise of the user through SMS and e-mail. The digilocker nominee after authentication of the identity can access the digital information. Harnessing the nomination mechanism in DigiLocker can facilitate information about the financial assets being available to DigiLocker nominees and aid in transmission of the assets.

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The nomination mechanism in DigiLocker does not alter the norms governing transmission for the mutual funds or demat accounts.

In directions to securities market intermediaries, all AMCs (and their RTAs) and recognised depositories are directed to register with DigiLocker as ‘Issuer’ so as to enable users / investors, at their own option, to fetch their holding statement, as of the date immediately preceding the date of fetching, or transaction statements for the last 30 days of mutual fund units and demat accounts, respectively, in user’s DigiLocker account.

DigiLocker system shall also provide the user the option to fetch CAS automatically on the 1st of January each year.

As an advisory to investors, Sebi in the circular said that investors may consider becoming users of DigiLocker and also consider specifying nominee/s for the DigiLocker (over and above the nomination/s, if any, made in their demat account and MF folio).