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There has been a steady decline in the number of complaints received by the Office of Banking Ombudsman (OBO) in West Bengal and Sikkim during the last three years.
The OBO received 4,838 complaints during the review period (July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012) this year, as against 5,192 complaints in 2010-11. The number of complaints received in 2009-10 stood at 5,326, the Banking Ombudsman for West Bengal and Sikkim, M. S. Soy said while addressing a press meet here on Friday.
“The declining trend in the complaints received and dealt with indicates the healthy impact of the actions taken by the BO’s office in complaint resolution, making banks more pro-active in handling customer grievances,” he said.
While there has been a decline in the number of complaints received against new private sector banks and foreign banks, those received against nationalised banks and the State Bank Group have increased by five per cent and seven per cent respectively.
“Private and foreign banks have become much more serious about customer service and have tightened their internal redressal mechanism. Some of these banks also have an internal Ombudsman scheme. They also conduct regular audit to look into customer complaints,” he said.
Even though public sector banks have an internal redress mechanism, it is not as effective, he added.
According to Soy, some of the main reasons giving rise to disputes leading to complaints include failed ATM transactions, pension payments, lack of transparency on the part of card issuers and grievances pertaining to loan and deposit accounts among others.
Of the 4,838 complaints dealt with by the office during 2011-12 (including 468 brought forward from the previous year), 1,482 were treated as non maintainable.
Non maintainable complaints are those which are not furnished with the required information, that are outside the ambit of the OBO scheme or are frivolous complaints or complaints against entities other than banks.
Of the maintainable complaints (3,130), nearly 2,035 were settled during the year.
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