The banking ombudsman in Chennai is taking measures to streamline the functioning and improve the effectiveness of this grievance-redressal machinery. The objective is to ensure that complaints of poor service from customers get addressed in the first instance at the local branch level and the regional level, and only escalated when this option fails. The ombudsman, after instituting regular meetings with nodal officers and senior management of banks, feels that most problems can be sorted out at their level itself.

Number of complaints

Currently, about 1,000 complaints come in every month to the ombudsman's office. With this mechanism (meetings with nodal officers), the number of complaints has reduced to about 700 a month.

In 2009-10, the banking ombudsman in Chennai received the highest number of complaints in the country at 12,727, or 16 per cent of the total complaints, according to the Reserve Bank of India. From 4,585 complaints in 2007-08 it more than doubled to 10,381 in 2008-09, recording the highest number of complaints alongside Delhi.

Mr S. Ganesh, who had taken charge as Banking Ombudsman Chennai - Reserve Bank of India last April, told Business Line that complaints are monitored on a daily basis to ensure that resolution happens at the earliest.

“Greater focus has been made to trim down the complaints that have been pending for more than three months. With banks being compliant, it makes our job easier”, he said.

Mr Ganesh said the awareness level among customers about banking ombudsman could be the reason for the highest number of banking-related complaints. He also said that the region has the least number of awards. Awards are financial compensation paid by banks due to their negligence, to the customers.

The nature of complaints are no different from that seen across the country with credit cards and failed ATM transactions accounting for the largest number of complaints. This is followed by complaints related to loans and advances, remittance and pensions.

Limitations

There are few cases which may require excessive documentation which would have to be rejected, according to him. He said, “As we are not investigative authority, the customer can approach any other forum to solve this issue.”

Cost to the regulator

While the customer does not pay a penny to get his complaint redressed, the average cost per complaint borne by the RBI is Rs 2,368. The regulator incurs close to Rs 20 crore for running 15 ombudsman offices across the country.

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