Banking ombudsmen received almost 2 lakh plaints in FY19

Non-observance of Fair Practice Codes continued to be the major ground of complaints with the offices of banking ombudsman (OBO) in 2018-19, followed by those relating to ATM/Debit Cards, Mobile/Electronic Banking, Failure to Meet Commitments, Credit Cards, Deposit Accounts, Levy of Charges without Prior Notice, among others.

As per the Annual Report of the Ombudsman Schemes, the complaints received at 21 OBOs in 2018-19 rose by 32,311 to 1,95,901. In the preceding year, the complaints were up by 32,603 to 1,63,590. While non-observance of fair practices code at 19.17 per cent continued to remain major ground for complaints during the year, its percentage came down from 22.10 per cent in the previous year.

Complaints relating to ATM / Debit Cards comprised 18.65 per cent of total complaints, up from 15.08 per cent in the previous year. As per the report, of the total number of ATM/Debit Cards complaints,a major sub-category was ‘Account debited but cash not dispensed by ATMs’ which accounted for almost 53 per cent of the ATM-related complaints.

Complaints relating to Mobile/Electronic Banking comprised 7.55 per cent of the total complaints against 5.19 per cent in the previous year.

The complaints on the ground relating to digital transactions (mobile, internet, ATM and credit cards) rose by 18,801 to 64,607 complaints and accounted for 33 per cent of total complaints.

“This, however, did not include the digital related complaints falling under other grounds under the Scheme. The rise in complaints reflects rising popularity of digital modes of transactions,” the report said.

The rising complaints relating to digital transactions led to the launch of Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions, extension of limited liability circular to the Pre-paid Payment Instruments in January 2019 and introduction of tokenization of card transactions for facilitating transactions without disclosing the 16 digit Primary Account Numbers.

Complaints relating to ‘deposit accounts’ constituted 5.54 per cent of the total complaints received, witnessing an increase of 61.39 per cent on year-on-year (yoy) basis. The complaints were mainly on grounds of delay in credit, non-credit of proceeds to party’s account, non-payment of deposit or non-observance of the RBI directives and wrong application of rate of interest on deposits in savings or other accounts.

Complaints relating to ‘Loans and Advances’ constituted 3.88 per cent of the total complaints received and generally pertained to delay in sanction, disbursement, non-observance of prescribed time schedule for disposal of loan applications, non-acceptance of application without valid reason.