In December 2025, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released the ‘Annual Report of the Ombudsman Scheme 2024-25’ under the Reserve Bank – Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (RB-IOS), 2021.
- According to the report, total RBI Ombudsman complaints rose 13.55% in Financial Year 2024-25 (FY25), increasing from 11,75,075 in FY24 to 13,34,244.
Exam Hints:
- What? Annual Report of RBI Ombudsman Scheme 2024-25 released
- Under: RB-IOS, 2021
- Coverage: April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025
- Total Complaints: 13.34 lakh, up 13.55%
- ORBIOs: 2.96 lakh, Complaints per lakh bank a/c – 7.7, disposal – 93.07%
- Top 5 contributors: Chandigarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan
- Lowest no. of complaints from: Mizoram, Nagaland, Ladakh, Manipur, and Meghalaya
- Centre wise complaints: Metropolitan Centres (45.86%), followed by Urban (25.64%), Semi Urban (18.46%) and Rural (10.4%)
- Entity-wise complaint: Bank (81.53%), NBFC (14.80%)
- Bank-wise: Private sector banks(37.53%), PSBs(34.80%)
- Categories: Loans and Advances (29.25%), Credit cards (20.04%)
- Cost: Rs 1582
- CRPC: 9.11 lakh complaints received; 7.76 lakh non-maintainable, 16,128 pending
About Annual Report of Ombudsman Scheme 2024-25 :
Overview: The Annual Report offers a detailed overview of the activities carried out by the 24 RBI Ombudsman Offices (ORBIOs), the Centralised Receipt and Processing Centre (CRPC), and the Contact Centre (CC) during the year.
- The Annual Report covers the period from April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025.
Modes of Complaint Receipt: Complaints were received via Electronic mail(email) or letter at the CRPC, as well as through the Complaint Management System (CMS) portal.
Entities Covered: The Scheme covers Commercial Banks(CBs), Regional Rural Banks(RRBs), and Scheduled or Non-Scheduled Primary (Urban) Co-operative Banks with deposits of Rs.50 crore or more, as well as Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs), excluding Housing Finance Companies (HFCs), that either accept deposits or have customer interfaces with assets of Rs.100 crore or above.
- It also includes Payment System Participants and Credit Information Companies.
Complaint Receipt & Disposal:
ORBIOs: The ORBIOs handled 2,96,321 complaints in FY25, marking a 0.82% increase from 2,93,924 complaints recorded in FY24.
- Despite the increase in volume, the number of complaints per lakh bank accounts declined to 7.7 from 8.9.
- It disposed of a total of 2.90 lakh complaints during the year maintaining a disposal rate of 93.07%.
Geographic distribution: The States / Union Territories (UTs) of Chandigarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan were the top five contributors to the complaints at the ORBIOs in terms of complaints received per lakh accounts.
- Mizoram, Nagaland, Ladakh, Manipur, and Meghalaya reported the lowest number of complaints per lakh accounts.
- In FY25, majority of complaints at the ORBIOs were received from Metropolitan Centres (45.86%), followed by Urban (25.64%), Semi Urban (18.46%) and Rural (10.4%)
Complaint Mode: In FY25, 91.22% of the complaints received at ORBIOs were lodged through digital mode using CMS portal or email as compared to 88.77% in the previous year.
Complaint Composition:
Entity-wise complaints: Complaints against the banks formed the largest portion accounting for 81.53% of complaints received by the ORBIOs, followed by Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) accounting for 14.80% during FY25.
- Among the banks, the private sector banks accounted for the highest share of complaints at 37.53% in FY25, while Public Sector Banks(PSBs) recorded a lower share of complaints at 34.80%.
- State-owned banks saw an 8.45% decline in complaints to ORBIOs, whereas complaints against Small Finance Banks (SFBs) rose by 42% from a lower base.
Complaint Categories: Complaints related to Loan and Advances was the highest at 29.25% in FY25.
- Complaints related to Credit Cards increased by 20.04% and has become the second highest contributor of complaints.
- However, complaints related to mobile /electronic banking decreased by 12.74%, Year-on-Year(Y-o-Y).
- Complaints related to Automated Teller Machines(ATMs) and debit cards dropped significantly, from 14.56% in FY23 to 7.47% in FY25, indicating a clear shift toward digital payments.
Complaint Cost: For FY25, the average cost of handling a complaint at the ORBIOs reduced to Rs 1,582 per complaint from Rs 1,732 per complaint during FY24.
CRPC:
Complaint Statistics: The CRPC received 9.11 lakh complaints, out of which, 1.08 lakh and 10,589 complaints were sent to the 24 ORBIOs and the Consumer Education and Protection Cells (CEPCs), respectively.
- Of these, 7.76 lakh were classified as non-maintainable – cases that fall outside the scheme’s scope – while 16,128 remained pending at the end of the financial year.
Complaint Mode: During FY25, 93.18% of the complaints received at the CRPC were through email.
Contact Centre (CC): In FY25, the services of the CCs were extended by more than 6 hours per day for English and 10 regional languages and made available six days of the week.
- The 10 regional languages are Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Odia, Punjabi, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.
- The CC is working from three locations viz., Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar (Odisha) and Kochi (Kerala).
Calls received: The CCs received around 9.27 lakh calls during FY25, as compared to 7.19 lakh calls in FY24.
RBI Complaint Reception and Support Facilities:
Centralised Receipt and Processing Centre(CRPC): The RBI set up a CRPC in Chandigarh for receipt of all physical and email complaints, for digitalizing and initial processing in the Complaint Management System (CMS) portal.
Contact Centre(CC): The CC is a toll free facility (14448) to provide information / clarifications to the public regarding the AGR (Alternate Grievance Redressal) mechanism of RBI, guide complainants in filing of complaints, as well as for providing the status of complaints.
About Reserve Bank – Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (RB-IOS):
Launches: The RB-IOS, 2021, was launched on November 12, 2021, by merging three earlier Ombudsman schemes: the Banking Ombudsman Scheme (BOS), 2006; the Ombudsman Scheme for Non-Banking Financial Companies (OSNBFC), 2018; and the Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions (OSDT), 2019.
Alternate Grievance Redressal (AGR) Mechanism: The Scheme offers a cost-free and speedy AGR mechanism for complaints not resolved by Regulated Entities or left unanswered for over 30 days.
Administration: The Scheme is administered by the Reserve Bank’s Consumer Education and Protection Department (CEPD) through 24 Ombudsman offices.
Recent Related News:
In September 2025, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced a new scheme for facilitating accelerated payout to ensure faster settlement of inoperative accounts and unclaimed deposits lying with banks. As of June 2025, the unclaimed deposits stood at over Rs. 67,000 crore (cr).
