Complaints against govt-run banks on the rise, says RBI

MUMBAI: The banking ombudsman’s office has seen a 10% dip in customer complaints in FY11, a report released by the Reserve Bank of India said. The office of the banking ombudsman, or OBO, received 71,274 complaints in FY11, down from 79,266 complaints in the previous year.

A notable feature in the pattern of complaints is the rise in the share of public sector banks. While the share of nationalised banks and the State Bank group in the total number of complaints has risen, that of private sector and foreign banks has dipped.

Complaints relating to card products ( ATM, debit and credit cards) constituted 24% of the complaints received and continue to be the major area of complaints in FY11.

The report titled ‘Annual Report of the Banking Ombudsman Scheme’ does not attribute any specific reasons for the sudden rise or fall in the number of complaints at a given OBO. The awareness campaigns being conducted by the OBOs need to be fine-tuned to sensitise the banks and customers about their respective roles and responsibilities, the report said.

With increased emphasis being placed on opening of more bank branches in the unbanked/underbanked pockets of the country, there is a need for banks and OBOs to ensure that adequate physical and institutional arrangements are in place to take proper care of the new customers joining the mainstream banking channels.

The large number of complaints received against banks, especially firstresort complaints, indicates that the internal machinery for grievance redressal in banks needs to be strengthened and made more responsive and robust, RBI said in the report.

The main reason for these complaints is the difficulty faced by the bank customers in accessing the card-issuing banks from various locations where a person could be using the card or may have lost/misplaced the card. Further, most of the queries relating to credit card are handled by the call centres.

The staff employed at these call centres is not very familiar with the banks’ card products or the banks’ customers. As such, the response from the call centres is not helpful in resolving customer grievances.