RBI likely to bring urban banks under ombudsman's ambit

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A proposal has been mooted to bring in co-operative urban banks under the purview of Banking Omudsman in view of their key role in banking activity in many states.

The proposal had been mooted by an internal committee of RBI and a final decision would be taken after eliciting views of the state governments, A Madasamy, Banking Ombudsman for Kerala and Lakshadweep, told reporters here today.

Madasamy said though there was a strong opinion in favour of the proposal state governments' views were important in the matter since co-operatives come under them.

Briefing on the customer grievance redressal by the Omboudsman in the region in the year ended on June 30, he said as many as 2274 complaints were received during the period and over 90 per cent of them had been looked into and settled.

The complaints mostly related to deficiency in customer service, pension account handling, educational loans and ATM-related issues.

Regarding the ATM-related complaints, he said the banks should install efficient and tamper-proof machines to avoid the risk of malfunctioning and theft.

While dealing with complaints, it was often found that the CCTV images obtained from ATMs were quite vague or of poor quality which came in the way of effective investigation and tracking down of the thieves, he said.