Ghana's GH¢500 Million in Dormant Funds — and the Inheritance Poverty Trap

Close to GH¢500 million in dormant financial assets is sitting in Ghana's banking system, and most of the families entitled to it will never see it. That is the warning from the Institute for Liberty and Policy Innovation (ILAPI), which this week described the country's growing stock of unclaimed balances as a form of "inheritance poverty" — wealth that exists, is legally owned, but never reaches the people it was meant to protect.

What exactly has Ghana found?

Bank of Ghana data cited by ILAPI shows that between 2016 and 2024, more than GH¢167.8 million, US$14.6 million, £2.4 million and €2.3 million in dormant balances were transferred to the central bank. Between 2021 and July 2024 alone, 1,448,660 dormant accounts entered the system.

Under Ghana's banking rules, an account that stays inactive for five years is transferred to the Bank of Ghana, which runs a portal where account holders or their legal representatives can trace unclaimed funds. The money does not disappear. It waits.

The problem is what happens when the person it is waiting for has died.

Why can't families just claim the money?

Because "next of kin" is not a legal key. The Bank of Ghana has clarified that being listed as a next of kin gives no automatic right to withdraw from a deceased customer's account. Families must establish legal authority — probate where there is a will, letters of administration where there is not.

That process is where the money gets stranded. ILAPI says nearly 70% of beneficiaries who attempted to recover dormant assets abandoned the process. One assessment it cites estimates that a claimant can spend around GH¢7,500 and wait more than 32 weeks to access a deceased relative's funds. For a family that needs the money for school fees, rent or medical bills, a year of paperwork and fees is often functionally the same as the money not existing.

A dormant account is rarely just a number. It is school fees, working capital for a small business, medical savings — money set aside to protect the people a breadwinner leaves behind.

Is this only a Ghana problem?

No — Ghana is simply the latest country to put a number on it. In the United States, state unclaimed-property programs hold tens of billions of dollars: roughly $19 billion in New York and about $15 billion in California alone, with the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators estimating that one in seven Americans has money waiting. Malaysia estimates RM60 billion (about $13 billion) in unclaimed assets since independence. Japan's dormant-deposit system has absorbed hundreds of billions of yen.

The pattern is identical everywhere: institutions hold the money safely, but the path from "the money exists" to "the family can use it" runs through legal and administrative steps that most families only discover at the worst possible moment.

What is Ghana proposing to fix it?

ILAPI is calling for a Next of Kin and Beneficiary Access Act that would harmonise claim procedures across banks, insurers and pension administrators, plus a National Beneficiary Claims Portal, standardised documentation, and mandatory notification of known beneficiaries when an account goes dormant or an institution learns the holder has died.

The reforms would not remove legal verification — any system releasing inherited funds still has to protect estates against impersonation and fraud. The goal is narrower: stop making legitimate heirs abandon family wealth because the process is simply too hard.

What can a family actually do about this?

Policy reform moves slowly; families can move today. The single largest cause of stranded wealth is not the law — it is that heirs do not know what exists, where it is held, or who to contact. Three habits close most of that gap:

1. Keep one current record of every account, policy, pension, wallet and debt — with the institution, the reference, and what to do with it.
2. Tell a trusted person that the record exists and how they would reach it.
3. Where your jurisdiction allows it, formalise the paperwork — a will, named beneficiaries, registered next of kin — so the legal path is short rather than long.

This is the gap a family vault is built to close. Not a safe, and not a will substitute: a living, private record of what you own and owe, with instructions that reach the right people only when they are needed — so wealth that took a lifetime to build does not spend decades waiting in a dormant account.

Sources: The Vaultz News, Norvan Reports, CBS/spacedaily on US unclaimed property.