Section 57 of Uganda's National Payment Systems Act 2020 makes an electronic money account dormant after nine consecutive months without a registered transaction. It is blocked after notice, closed six months later if it is not reactivated, and the trustees send the balance to the Bank of Uganda. Unclaimed after seven years, it goes to the Consolidated Fund.
Money sent to a Ugandan mobile wallet and left untouched follows a path Uganda's National Payment Systems Act 2020 sets out in full. The account is dormant after nine months, blocked, then closed six months later. The balance goes to the Bank of Uganda, and after seven unclaimed years to the Consolidated Fund.
Key Takeaways
- Section 57(1) makes an electronic money account dormant after nine consecutive months with no registered transaction.
- Two notices are required: one at least a month before suspension, and one within five working days of the block.
- The account is closed if it is not reactivated within six months of being blocked.
- The trustees then transfer the balance and the identifying information to the Bank of Uganda.
- Seven years later, anything unclaimed goes to the Consolidated Fund.
Whether this reaches your transfer depends on how it is collected
Section 57 governs an electronic money account, and nothing else. So the channel your recipient collects through decides whether any of it applies, and the AUD to UGX corridor page covers the transfer itself.
Cash handed across a counter never becomes a balance at all. A credit into an ordinary Ugandan bank account is a balance, but it sits outside section 57 by the section's own terms, and nothing here describes what happens to it. The wallet is the case the section describes.
The balance is held on trust, beyond the issuer's creditors
While the balance sits there it is the recipient's money, held on trust, and the Act is direct about it.
Section 49 requires an electronic money issuer to apply to the Bank of Uganda to open a trust account. It is held at a financial institution or a microfinance deposit taking institution, for the purpose of maintaining funds of a customer. The application carries the proposed names of the trustees who will manage that account, and the issuer's corporate and management structure. Where the Bank of Uganda is satisfied with them, it issues its approval in writing. Section 50 then puts three duties on those trustees:
- manage the account on behalf of the customer;
- establish safeguard measures against risks that may occasion loss to beneficiaries of the funds;
- monitor that the funds held are equal in value to the electronic money issued.
Section 52 is the protection itself: the balances of the trust account and the special account shall not be attached, assigned or transferred for the purposes of satisfying any debt or claim. Section 53 puts duties on the issuer as well. Four of them bear on a balance that is sitting untouched:
- it must not commingle those funds with any other funds;
- it must spread them across different institutions to mitigate concentration risk, as the Bank of Uganda may prescribe;
- it must report on the account to the Bank of Uganda monthly, or at other prescribed intervals;
- it must honour withdrawals or transfers on demand.
So a wallet balance in Uganda is not an unsecured claim against the company that issued it. It is money held on trust and put beyond the reach of that company's creditors by statute.
The sequence, and the period attached to each step
Section 57 sets out six steps with a period attached to each.
| Step | Who acts | Period | Provision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account becomes dormant | no one; it is a status | nine consecutive months with no registered transaction | s.57(1) |
| First notice, warning of suspension | the issuer | at least one month before the nine months expire | s.57(2) |
| Account blocked, no further transactions | the issuer | at expiry of that notice | s.57(3) |
| Second notice, with reactivation instructions | the issuer | within five working days of the block | s.57(4) |
| Account closed | the issuer | if not reactivated within six months of the block | s.57(5) |
| Balance and identifying information transferred | the trustees | on closure | s.57(6) |
The trigger in the first row is worth reading closely, because it is narrower than activity in the ordinary sense. Section 57(1) counts a registered transaction. A balance that simply sits, however often your recipient looks at it, is a balance no transaction has touched.
The two notices do different jobs. The first is tied to the dormancy period, so it is meant to arrive while the account still works, and section 57(2) requires it to say that the account will be suspended unless there is a transaction on it. One registered transaction inside the nine months ends the run, and the count starts again from there. Reactivation is what ends the block: under section 57(3) the issuer permits no further transactions until the customer reactivates the account. The second notice is tied to the block and must carry that remedy with it: the Act requires it to provide instructions on the process of reactivation, not merely to announce what has happened.
Seven years to reclaim it, and then the Consolidated Fund
The money can still be recovered for seven years after the transfer, from the Bank of Uganda rather than from the issuer.
Section 57(7) requires the Bank of Uganda to refund unclaimed balances on request, within seven years after the dormant account is transferred to it. The refund goes to the account holder, or to their legal representative where the holder has died. That period runs from the transfer to the Bank, not from the date the account fell dormant, so it sits on top of the earlier steps rather than overlapping them. Adding the nine months of dormancy to the six months between the block and closure gives fifteen months, and that total is arithmetic rather than a period the Act names.
The identifying information that travels with the balance under section 57(6) is what makes this workable. A refund duty needs the Bank to be able to match a claimant to a balance, and that subsection is what puts it in a position to do so.
Section 57(8) then requires the Bank to transfer whatever is still unclaimed at the end of that period to the Consolidated Fund, which is the government's central account. That is where this corridor differs from one where a transfer is refused or returned and the money travels back towards you. Here nothing is refused. The payment succeeds, the credit is made, and the statute moves an untouched balance into public revenue on a published timetable.
The complaint route belongs to the recipient, not the sender
A recipient who disputes what a licensee has done has a statutory route, and it belongs to them rather than to you: a sender in Australia is not a party to it. Part IV of the National Payment Systems (Consumer Protection) Regulations 2022, Statutory Instrument 103 of 2022, is headed Complaints Handling and Redress Mechanism. It calls the regulated business a licensee and the deciding authority the Central Bank, and both words below are the instrument's own.
| Stage | Who acts | Time limit | Where it is set |
|---|---|---|---|
| Request for clarification | the consumer | - | reg. 21 |
| Acknowledgement, in writing | the licensee | immediately | reg. 21 |
| Decision, in writing | the licensee | the time set in the Schedule | reg. 21 |
| Complaint to the Central Bank | the consumer | within thirty days of the decision | Part IV |
| Determination | the Central Bank | within twenty-one working days | Part IV |
A complaint must be in writing and accompanied by the relevant evidence. Where the Central Bank determines one, it may order the licensee to compensate and refund the consumer.
Where to look next
How international transfers work sets out the sequence a payment moves through before any national rule reaches it. What a payment rail is made of explains the infrastructure a wallet credit lands on. Understanding transfer fees covers the separate question of what a transfer costs. The live rate page for this corridor is AUD to UGX, and the AUD to UGX convert page shows the pair on its own.
Sources
- National Payment Systems Act 2020, Chapter 59, Uganda Legal Information Institute - sections 49 and 50 on trust accounts and the duties of trustees, section 52 on protection of the trust and special account, section 53 on the duties of an electronic money issuer, and section 57 in full on dormant accounts. Published in Uganda Gazette 51 of 4 September 2020.
- National Payment Systems (Consumer Protection) Regulations 2022, Statutory Instrument 103 of 2022, Uganda Legal Information Institute - Part IV, Complaints Handling and Redress Mechanism, including the right to seek clarification, the right to complain to the Central Bank, the thirty day and twenty-one working day limbs, and the orders the Central Bank may make.
- National Payment Systems Act 2020, consolidation as at 31 December 2023, Uganda Legal Information Institute - the text section 57 was checked against, where all eight subsections are unchanged from the 2020 publication.
General information about sending money to Uganda and about the statutory treatment of electronic money balances there. Not financial advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.
Common questions
When does a Ugandan electronic money account become dormant?
Section 57(1) of the National Payment Systems Act 2020 provides that an electronic money account that does not have a registered transaction for nine consecutive months shall be considered dormant. The test is a registered transaction rather than a login or a balance enquiry, and the Act sets the period in the statute itself rather than leaving it to the issuer.
Is the recipient warned before the account is blocked?
Twice, on the face of the Act. Section 57(2) requires the issuer to give the customer notice of at least one month before the nine month period expires, saying that the account will be suspended unless there is a transaction on it. Section 57(4) then requires a second notice within five working days after the account has actually been blocked, and that one must provide instructions on the process of reactivation.
Who holds the money in a Ugandan mobile wallet?
Not the issuer, as its own money. Section 49 requires an electronic money issuer to apply to the Bank of Uganda to open a trust account at a financial institution or microfinance deposit taking institution. The application carries the names of the trustees who will manage it and the issuer's corporate and management structure, and the Bank issues its approval in writing where it is satisfied with them. Section 50 makes the trustees responsible for managing that account on behalf of the customer, for establishing safeguard measures against risks that may occasion loss to beneficiaries of the funds, and for monitoring that the funds in it are equal in value to the electronic money issued.
Does section 57 apply to money paid into a Ugandan bank account?
No. Section 57 governs an electronic money account, which is what a mobile wallet is. A credit into an ordinary Ugandan bank account sits outside it by the section's own terms, and cash handed across a counter never becomes a balance at all. What happens to a bank balance that is left alone is a different question, and section 57 does not answer it.
Can money that has already gone to the Bank of Uganda still be recovered?
For a defined period. Section 57(7) requires the Bank of Uganda to refund unclaimed balances to the account holder, or to the legal representative where the holder has died, on a request made within seven years after the dormant account was transferred to it. Section 57(8) then requires the Bank to transfer what is still unclaimed at the end of that period to the Consolidated Fund. The seven years runs from the transfer to the Bank, not from the date the account fell dormant.