‘Ombudsman plaints against banks up 19.8%’

Offices of the banking ombudsman received 32,311 more complaints in 2018-19 (Jul-Jun) taking the total to 195,901, up 19.75% on year. Of these, 72.19% were received electronically including through the online portal, higher than 63.61% in 2017-18, according to the Reserve Bank of India's annual report for its ombudsman schemes.

The Banking Ombudsman Scheme was launched by the RBI in 1995, following which it was extended to include non-banking financial companies in February 2018. However, it included only those non-bank lenders that have customer assets of at least 1 bln rupees.

The disposal rate for 2018-19 was 94.03%, lower than 96.46% in the previous year, largely due to the rise in volumes of complaints "with resource remaining the same", the report said. Of these, 70.40% complaints were resolved by agreement, through intervention of the offices of banking ombudsman, mediation and conciliation, higher than 65.82% in 2017-18.

"A third-party survey has shown overall satisfaction level of 73% among complainants under Banking Ombudsman Scheme, which RBI will strive to improve further," RBI Deputy Governor M. K. Jain was quoted as saying in the report.

He added that the schemes have gained popularity and played an important part in aligning the alternate grievance redressal structure of the RBI, as they provide a costfree and expeditious grievance redressal mechanism.