Private, Foreign Bank Customers Filed Most Complaints In FY21: RBI Report
RBI's ombudsman scheme for FY21 saw most complaints from private and foreign bank customers
Private bank and foreign bank customers complained the most against the services provided to them by their respective lenders in the year ended March 31, 2021.
According to the Reserve Bank of India's annual report on various ombudsman schemes released on Wednesday, private and foreign bank customers approached the regulator's redressal platform the most, as their banks did not provide adequate resolution.
The annual report is truncated and covers the July 2020 to March 2021 period, unlike the previous annual cycle from July to June. The regulator shifted its financial year, hence absolute data may be lower than previous year's.
The ombudsman scheme is the RBI's customer redressal platform, where customers can lodge their complaints if the resolution provided by banks, non-bank finance companies and digital payments firms is not satisfactory.
In total, the ombudsman schemes across banks, NBFCs and digital payments companies received 3,03,107 complaints during the period under review, which is 8.30% lower than the previous annual cycle. However, on an annualised basis, the total number of complaints received rose by 22.27%.
The banking ombudsman scheme, which is the oldest of the three, received 2,73,203 complaints in FY21, as compared with over 3 lakh complaints received a year ago. Most of these, or over 89% complaints, were received electronically.
Credit card complaints by private bank customers were the highest under digital mode of payments at 0.55 complaints against every 1,000 outstanding credit cards. Foreign bank customers followed them with 0.28 complaints against every 1,000 credit cards.
Among non-digital modes of transactions, foreign banks were the worst off with 0.14 complaints for every 1,000 accounts held by them. Private bank customers filed 0.127 complaints against every 1,000 accounts.
Bangladesh-headquartered AB Bank Ltd. reported the highest ratio of 9.7 complaints per 1,000 accounts, with Mashreqbank close behind at 8.45 complaints.
Smaller private lenders such as DCB Bank Ltd., Yes Bank Ltd., AU Small Finance Bank Ltd. and RBL Bank Ltd. saw their customers file the highest number of complaints among domestic banks.
The rate of disposal of complaints rose to 96.67% in FY21 compared with 92.36% in the preceding year.
Nearly three-fourths of the complaints filed with the ombudsman scheme for banks were resolved by mutual consent, while 27.12% were rejected by the redressal scheme.
According to data provided by the RBI, the turnaround time for resolving complaints fell to 55 days in FY21, as compared with 95 days a year before that. This was largely because of the technical glitches faced by the digital complaint management system in FY20, when it was first introduced. In FY21, these glitches were resolved, the RBI said.