Letter to BS: Increasing number of internal ombudsmen, their independence

This refers to “More autonomy for internal ombudsman" (August 2). The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been right in increasing the number of internal ombudsmen (IO) and their independence. The whole objective of setting up IO in banks was to ensure that most of the customer complaints were resolved at the banks itself by independent authorities set up exclusively in these institutions. Somehow this has not worked in many banks. The number of complaints being made to the RBI appointed banking ombudsmen is fast increasing. It was about 130,000 for the year ending June 2017. In many public sector banks (PSBs), the IO who are retired and experienced general managers/deputy general managers are either not adequately remunerated for their work or are not provided adequate support staff/infrastructure to effectively discharge their duties. 

The IO must have sufficient powers to take independent decisions on customer complaints escalated to them. Also, the banks should have well-staffed and effective customer service/complaints departments to swiftly resolve the ever increasing complaints from their customers. This system must prevail right from their head offices to their branches. Officers in these departments must have adequate powers to swiftly resolve complaints and where financial loss is involved, quickly compensate them in accordance with the prevalent instructions. Further, banks should take ownership for not being able to resolve customer complaints.

Arun Pasricha, New Delhi

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