Banking Ombudsman see rise in complaints

The Reserve Bank of India has decided to set up working group to review, update, and revise the Banking Ombudsman Scheme 2006.

Banking Ombudsmen saw a rise in customer complaints in 2011-2012. The Annual Report said that the total number of customer complaints received in Banking Ombudsman's (BO) offices of the Reserve Bank of India stood at 72,889 in 2011-12.

The largest number of customer complaints were about failure to meet commitments/non-observance of fair practices code, followed by card related (ATM/Debit/Credit) complaints and complaints relating to deposit accounts.

Out of the total 14,492 card related complaints, 9348 complaints pertained to ATM / Debit Cards.

Broadly, the reasons for complaints were: unsolicited cards, unsolicited insurance policies and recovery of premium, charging of annual fee in spite of being offered as 'free' card, authorisation of loans over phone, wrong billing, settlement offers conveyed telephonically.

However, there was a decline of 3% in the complaints related to cards when compared to previous year, which was mainly due to in general awareness about usage of cards.

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