South Korea’s growing pile of dormant financial accounts highlights a persistent challenge for banks and financial institutions: returning unclaimed money to customers while managing an expanding base of inactive accounts. For U.S. financial firms and investors watching Asian banking markets, the trend underscores the operational costs of customer disengagement and the importance of effective account-management and asset-recovery systems.
The number of long-inactive, unclaimed and dormant financial accounts reached 341.91 million at the end of 2025, up 29.3% from 264.4 million at the end of 2021, according to data submitted by the Financial Supervisory Service to South Korea’s National Assembly. The figures were disclosed on October 20 by Park Sung-hoon, a lawmaker from the ruling People Power Party.
Long-inactive accounts generally refer to accounts with no transactions for at least three years. Dormant financial assets include deposits and savings accounts whose claim periods have expired, unclaimed insurance payouts and securities accounts classified as dormant under separate rules.
Long-inactive and unclaimed accounts totaled 195.03 million at the end of last year, an increase of 26% over four years. Deposit and savings accounts accounted for 124.83 million, followed by 69.27 million cash-balance accounts and 940,000 insurance-related accounts.
Cash-balance accounts recorded particularly rapid growth, climbing 61.8% to 69.27 million from 42.81 million at the end of 2021. Their increase accounted for roughly two-thirds of the overall growth in long-inactive accounts during the period.
The balance of long-inactive and unclaimed financial assets reached 14.19 trillion won, equivalent to approximately $10.2 billion. Deposit and savings accounts accounted for 7.43 trillion won, insurance claims for 5.19 trillion won and cash balances for 1.56 trillion won.
Although the combined balance fell from 15.08 trillion won at the end of 2021, unclaimed funds in deposit and savings accounts rose by 849.3 billion won over the same period, signaling that efforts to return money to customers have not prevented balances in some categories from growing.
Banks held the largest share of long-inactive deposit and savings balances, at 5.69 trillion won, followed by mutual financial institutions with 1.67 trillion won and savings banks with 78.4 billion won.
Dormant financial accounts overall increased to 146.88 million at the end of 2025 from 109.55 million four years earlier. Dormant securities accounts drove much of the increase, rising by approximately 36.81 million to 109.92 million. They accounted for about 75% of all dormant financial accounts at the end of last year.
Financial institutions refunded 548.8 billion won in dormant financial assets through approximately 8.3 million accounts in 2025. The figures exclude funds transferred to the Korea Inclusive Finance Agency.
Even after those refunds, the number of dormant financial accounts increased by about 5.12 million from the previous year.
Park said financial institutions should move beyond publicizing refund campaigns and examine why inactive accounts continue to accumulate. He called for a comprehensive review of advance customer notifications and refund procedures to make it easier for account holders to recover their money.
