Small and medium-sized banks are gradually clearing "dormant accounts," which may become a regular mechanism.

Reporter: Peng Yan

Since March, several small and medium-sized banks have issued announcements to intensively standardize and clean up inefficient accounts, such as those with long periods of inactivity, low balances, and inconsistent identity information. At the same time, many institutions have clarified that they will establish an annual regular cleaning mechanism, shifting bank account management from temporary special rectifications to long-term control.

Yang Haiping, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Finance and Law, told the Securities Daily that the concentrated cleanup of “dormant accounts” by small and medium-sized banks is mainly based on three considerations: First, to strictly implement the relevant requirements set by regulatory authorities; second, to strengthen risk prevention and control, as long-term inactive accounts are easily misused or stolen, becoming tools for telecom fraud, money laundering, and other illegal activities; cleaning up these accounts can effectively protect customer funds; third, to align with the needs of refined management, reducing the system and labor costs occupied by ineffective accounts and optimizing the customer management system.

The cleanup work will enter a regular phase

The reporter has found that the scope of this cleanup includes both personal and corporate bank settlement accounts, primarily determined by the criteria of “long-term no active transactions” and “low balances,” while also including accounts with expired documents, non-real-name registrations, and multiple accounts per individual. Unlike previous short-term special actions, “establishing an annual regular mechanism” has become a prominent feature of this round of cleanup, with many banks already clarifying follow-up regular execution arrangements.

Specifically, on March 19, Hejiang Rural Commercial Bank issued an announcement regarding the cleanup of personal bank settlement accounts, stating that it would clean up accounts held by individuals with multiple accounts; accounts with telephone numbers not corresponding one-to-one with ID card numbers will also be cleaned up. The bank will begin cleaning eligible accounts on June 30, 2026, and will implement ongoing cleanup of qualifying accounts each year thereafter.

Pinghe Rural Commercial Bank clarified the criteria for ineffective corporate settlement accounts in a March 14 announcement: Any corporate settlement account that has not actively initiated any payment or receipt business and has no outstanding debts to the bank during the period from March 1, 2025, to February 28, 2026, will fall within the scope of the cleanup. The announcement indicated that the first round of cleanup will be executed in April 2026, followed by one cleanup each year thereafter.

Recently, Qinghai Bank also released an announcement specifying the cleanup criteria for long-term inactive personal accounts: As of March 30, 2026, personal bank settlement accounts that have not actively engaged in any deposit, withdrawal, or transfer transactions for two consecutive years or more, with balances of 50 yuan or less, and no binding relationships with credit card repayments, loan repayments, large certificates of deposit, wealth management, or ETC, will be included in the cleanup (excluding social security card accounts). The bank stated that after completing the first round of cleanup on March 31, 2026, it would regularly standardize eligible accounts each year.

Additionally, several small and medium-sized banks, such as Gushi Tianjiao Village Bank and Panzhihua Rural Commercial Bank, are also following up to conduct concentrated standardization and cleanup work. Among them, many banks have clarified that they will implement annual regular cleanups in the future, constructing a new model of account control that combines “concentrated rectification + long-term management.”

Conducive to reducing costs and increasing efficiency

“The recent intensive cleanup of ‘dormant accounts’ by small and medium-sized banks is not only a compliance measure guided by regulatory authorities in the financial industry but also a proactive adjustment by small and medium-sized banks in response to operational pressures,” said Xue Hongyan, a special researcher at Su Commercial Bank, to the Securities Daily.

From a regulatory perspective, small and medium-sized banks have become key targets of regulatory scrutiny due to shortcomings in account management, such as outdated customer information and relatively insufficient identity verification technology. Analyzing from an operational standpoint, small and medium-sized banks are currently facing the challenges of narrowing net interest margins and pressured profits; long-term inactive accounts continue to occupy system resources and labor costs, and cleaning up “dormant accounts” helps optimize account structure and achieve cost reduction and efficiency enhancement.

Xue Hongyan believes that for the banks themselves, this move can reduce ineffective resource occupancy and lower operating costs, allowing the saved resources to be used to optimize products and services, strengthen comprehensive account lifecycle management, and improve risk control levels. At the industry level, this move can also promote information sharing and collaborative regulation of accounts among financial institutions, helping to build a more robust financial security defense line.

Looking ahead to the subsequent regular cleanup work, Xue Hongyan suggests that banks should establish a tiered and classified management mechanism, formulating differentiated cleanup strategies based on account dormancy duration, balance status, risk levels, etc., while optimizing customer notification processes to fully safeguard financial consumers’ right to know. Additionally, they should enhance identity verification and risk identification capabilities through technological upgrades, making the cleanup work more efficient and precise.

(Editor: Qian Xiaorui)

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