Many Australians may be unaware that significant amount of their money are sitting idly and waiting to be claimed, according to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), which added that majority of these funds are either forgotten bank accounts or other financial assets.

In a statement released on Tuesday, ASIC financial literacy executive Delia Rickard said that as much as $636 million await fund owners in the form of uncollected dividend cheques, forgotten insurance policies and idle bank accounts.

While the average amount is no more than $652, Rickard noted that to some, accessing the unclaimed money could prove a windfall as she revealed that one particular savings account still carries a balance that is worth almost a million-dollar."

"The biggest amount we have waiting to be claimed is $992,000 ... that belongs to someone who at least opened the account in Carlisle, Western Australia, an old Commonwealth Bank account," the ASIC official told ABC.

Many of these fund owners, Rickard said, may have lost track of their financial assets due to a host of reasons as she offered: "They forget ... or they move and they forget to pass on their new details."

"When you are moving there are a lot of things to do and you might forget to write to each company you have shares in, and they lose track of you," Rickard explained.

Good thing is the money are itching to be claimed by their unwitting owners, who according to ASIC can easily check on the agency's MoneySmart website where they can feed some information in order to determine if some of the hidden funds were theirs and are simply waiting to be bagged.