11.2% rise in banking-related complaints in FY15: RBI

The Reserve Bank today said there was 11.2 per cent surge in the number of complaints received by Banking Ombudsmen in 2014-15, with a majority of them emanating from banks' failure to meet commitments or non observance of fair practices code.
"The number of complaints increased by 11.2 per cent as compared to the previous year to 85,131," the central bank said in the Annual Report of the Banking Ombudsman Scheme published today.
Deputy Governor S S Mundra called the rise in complaints as a "sign that the awareness" about the ombudsmen scheme is increasing.
"The high-point of this report is that the proportion of complaints from rural and semi urban population has increased by 15.6 per cent and 8.5 per cent, respectively over the last year," Mundra said in his foreword.

He added that the success of a scheme like the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, which saw the opening of over 15 crore new accounts, will only result in an increase in complaints.
Failure to meet commitments or non-observance of fair practices/BCSBI codes accounted for the most number of complaints received at 29.2 per cent, followed by card-related complaints at 21.2 per cent.

Interestingly, direct sales agents and loan recovery agents, whose behaviour invites the wrath of the customers, accounted for only 0.4 per cent of the complaints filed.
Complaints in the category of pension (6.8 per cent), levy of charges without prior notice (6.5 per cent), loans and advances (5.7 per cent), deposit accounts (5.5 per cent), remittances (3.2 per cent) were other major areas of complaints, it said.

During the fiscal, the ombudsmen issued 87 awards, while the Appellate Authority received 73 appeals during the year against the awards/decisions of Banking Ombudsmen, the RBI said.
There was a decline in the amount spent for handling a single complaint, which came down to Rs 4,541 from Rs 4,824 in the year-ago period.
Apart from the complaints, there were 454 applications under the Right to Information Act received by the ombudsmen, it said.