Complaints to the office of the banking ombudsman, Reserve Bank of India (Tamil nadu, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands) declined by 5.58% during 2014-15 (July to June) to 8,285 complaints as against 8,775 in the previous year.
Of all the complaints nearly 26% of them pertained to nonobservance of fair practice codes by banks and failure to meet commitments. Around 22% of the complaints was card related (debit and credit card).“We have received some complaints in the online retailing category where the complainant's account was debited but the transaction did not go through and the goods were not delivered,“ banking ombuds man, Selvaraj Raja said.
Grievances pertaining to loans and advances accounted for 16.02% of the complaints during last year. Of the 1.327 complaints received under loans and advances during 201415, 82% of the complaints (or 1,084) pertained to education loans. “Customer objections mostly revolved around delay in giving application to students or defering loan sanctions. In some cases, banks insisted on collateral on applications for loans of up to `4.5 lakh,“ Raja said. Under the model education loan scheme of the Indian Banks' Association, loans up to `4.5 lakh are extended without any security. Raja added that as educational loans up to `4.5 lakh were unsecured in nature, lending didn't happen easily and that got reflected in the complaints.