New Delhi, Jan 12 (UNI) Consumer complaints under the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s ombudsman schemes jumped 22 per cent in FY21, the bulk of them related to debit cards, online banking and credit cards.

"The volume of complaints received under all the three Ombudsman Schemes increased by 22.27 per cent on an annualized basis and stood at 3,03,107 during the reported period," RBI said in a statement on Wednesday.

The banking regulator released the Annual Report of the Ombudsman Schemes for 2020-21 which has been prepared for the nine-month period July 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021 in line with the change in the RBI's financial year from ‘July-June’ to ‘April-March.'

The annual report covers the activities under the Banking Ombudsman Scheme (BOS), Ombudsman Scheme for Non-Banking Financial Companies (OSNBFC) and Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions (OSDT).

The BOS accounted for 90.13 per cent of total complaints (273,204) received under the three Ombudsman Schemes. The number of complaints received under OSNBFC and OSDT stood at 8.89 per cent and 0.98 per cent respectively of the total number of complaints.

The major areas of complaints covered) ATM/debit cards, mobile/electronic banking and credit cards, and collectively accounted for 42.74 per cent, compared to 44.65 per cent in the previous year.

Under the OSNBFC, major areas of complaints were non-adherence to fair practices code, non-observance to RBI directions and levy of charges without prior notice accounting for 75.32 per cent of the complaints as compared to 63.23 per cent in the previous year.

"The overall disposal rate improved to 96.59 per cent from 92.52 per cent in the previous year, despite higher volume of complaints, which can be attributed to the end-to-end digitization of complaint processing in CMS," the regulator said.

Of the maintainable complaints, 72.67 per cent were resolved by mutual agreement such as through intervention of the Ombudsman offices, conciliation and mediation efforts.

RBI has plans in place to improve quality and speed of complaint disposal by enhancing CMS capabilities and undertake annual assessment of banks under the framework for strengthening grievance redress mechanism in banks and review the framework.

It will further consolidate regulatory guidelines on consumer protection and customer service.

UNI NK MR