French Monetary and Financial Code
In forceI. - Each year, the credit institutions mentioned in Title I of Book V and the electronic money and payment institutions mentioned in Title II of the same book shall draw up a list of inactive accounts opened in their books.
An account is considered to be inactive :
1° Either at the end of a twelve-month period during which both of the following conditions are met:
a) No transactions have been carried out on the account, other than the recording of interest and the debiting by the institution holding the account of fees and commissions of any kind, the payment of income or the redemption of capital or debt securities;
b) The account holder, his/her legal representative or the person authorised by him/her has not contacted the institution in any way or carried out any transactions on another account opened in his/her name with the institution.
The twelve-month period is extended to five years for accounts in which financial securities are held, passbook accounts, term accounts and accounts in which assets and deposits are held in respect of the savings products mentioned in Title II of Book II, in respect of the employee savings products mentioned in Chapters III and IV of Title III of Book III of Part Three of the Labour Code and in respect of the profit-sharing products allocated to a blocked current account pursuant to 2° of Article L. 3323-2 of the same Code. When the sums deposited in an account or the securities registered in the account are unavailable for a certain period by virtue of legal provisions, contractual stipulations or the existence of a contractual security, the five-year period begins to run at the end of the period of unavailability;
2° Or, if the account holder is deceased, at the end of a period of twelve months following the death during which none of his heirs has informed the institution holding the account of his wish to assert his rights to the assets and deposits held in the account.
An account that meets the conditions set out in 1° due to the application of legal or regulatory provisions or a court decision is not an inactive account within the meaning of this article.
For the application of 2°, the institutions mentioned in the first paragraph of this I shall implement, in compliance with law no. 78-17 of 6 January 1978 relating to information technology, files and civil liberties, the processing of personal data for the purpose of finding deceased account holders who meet the conditions set out in 1°. To this end, they consult each year, in accordance with the conditions laid down by decree in the Conseil d'Etat, the data contained in the national register for the identification of natural persons and relating to the death of registered persons.
When an account is considered to be inactive, the institution holding the account shall inform the account holder, his legal representative, the person authorised by him or, where applicable, his beneficiaries known to the institution, by any means at its disposal, and shall inform them of the consequences attached to this in application of this article and article L. 312-20.
II. - Each year, the institutions mentioned in the first paragraph of I of this article publish the number of inactive accounts opened in their books and the total amount of deposits and assets held in these accounts.
III. - The annual amount of fees and commissions of all kinds deducted from the accounts mentioned in 1° and 2° of I is capped.
IV. - The conditions for application of this article are determined by decree in the Conseil d'Etat.
