Home loan borrowers who have any issue with their housing finance company (HFC) may soon be able to lodge a complaint with the Reserve bank of India (RBI) with the banking regulator planning to extend the scope of its services by March 2023. In a report released on January 4, 2023, the RBI said that it was putting in place a mechanism to extend the scope of the internal ombudsman scheme to cover HFCs and credit information companies.
The apex bank’s consumer education and protection department plans to complete this task by March 31, 2023, the RBI said in its annual report on the ombudsman scheme. Recall here that customers of banks and non-banking finance companies can use the RBI’s integrated platform since November 2021 to get their concerns addressed. The ambit of the scheme was extended to include non-scheduled urban cooperative banks with deposits of Rs 50 crore and above in 2022.
Cards, mobile, net-banking top complaint areas at banking ombudsman
In its report titled the Annual Report of the Ombudsman Schemes for the period April 01, 2021 – March 31, 2022, the RBI also said that the volume of complaints received under the ombudsman schemes during the year 2021-22 increased by 9.39% over the previous year and stood at 418,184 during the reported period. Complaints related to the digital modes of payment and transactions were the highest in number, constituting 42.12% of the total complaints received during April 1 to November 11, 2021, the report added. Majority (63.63%) of the maintainable complaints were resolved through mutual settlement, it further added.
During April 1 and November 11, 2021, 89.65% of the total complaints were received through digital modes, including, the 24×7 online CMS portal/ email/ CPGRAMS.
To strengthen the on-going financial awareness and education by the department and ombudsman offices, a nationwide awareness programme has been launched on the World Consumer Rights Day on March 15, 2022, the RBI report said.
