In January 2025, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released its latest Annual Report of the Ombudsman Scheme, 2023-24. As per the report, RBI resolved 95% (i.e. 2.84 lakh) complaints received under the Reserve Bank-Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (RB-IOS) between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024 and achieved a disposable rate of 95.10%.
- Under the RB-IOS, 2021 act, the complaints are handled by 24 Offices of the RBI Ombudsman (ORBIOs) and the Centralised Receipt and Processing Centre (CRPC). During F.Y.2023-24.
- The report revealed that a total of 9,34,355 complaints were received by the ORBIOs and CRPC as compared to 7,03,544 complaints during F.Y.2022-23, representing an increase of 32.81 per cent.
Key Findings:
i.Out of these 9,34,355 complaints, 2,93,924 complaints (31.46 per cent) were received at ORBIOs and 6,40,431 complaints (68.54 per cent) were received at the CRPC.
- As per the report, 88.77% of the total complaints received at the ORBIOs, came through digital modes including the online Complaint Management System (CMS) portal, and Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS).
ii.The report informed that ORBIO has resolved 57.07% of maintainable complaints through mutual settlement, conciliation, or mediation, while 40.78% were dismissed due to absence of any service deficiency.
iii.CRPC witnessed a sharp increase in complaints, receiving 7,66,957 complaints (including assigned to ORBIOs/ Consumer Education and Protection Cell (CEPCs)), which was 30.10 per cent higher as compared to the previous year.
- While, 6,31,876 complaints were dismissed as non-complaints or non-maintainable complaints and 1,26,607 complaints were assigned to ORBIOs/CEPCs for further redress.
iv.The report observed a significant increase in complaints from individuals, senior citizens in both FY23 and FY24. Notably, the complaints from this group have increased by 24.09%, from 2.07 lakh (in FY23) to 2.57 lakh (in FY24).
Complaint Distributions:
i.RBI received maximum complaints in the “Loans and Advances” category , with 85, 281 complaints reported in FY24, accounting 29.01% of total complaints. This represents a sharp increase of 42.70% compared to last year.
- It is followed by Mobile and Net Banking with 57,242 complaints (accounting 19.48% of total complaints), and saw a significant increase of 32.61% compared to previous year.
- Also, complaints related to ‘Opening and Operating Deposit Accounts’ increased by 34.45% (from the last year) to 46,358, representing 15.77% of total complaints.
- Complaints related to ‘Credit Cards’ increased by 23.95% (from the last year) to 42,329, accounting for 14.40% of total complaints.
- ATM and Debit cards complaints fell 15.7%, making it the only category with a decline.
ii.ORBIOs received maximum complaints against Banks during FY24, accounting 82.28% of total complaints (2.42 lakh), followed by Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) with 42,699 complaints (accounting 14.53% of total complaints).
- It further mentioned that within the banking sector, Public Sector Banks (PSBs) accounted for 38.32%, followed by Private Sector Banks (34.39%), Payment Banks (3.08%), Small Finance Banks (SFBs) (1.35%), among others.
State-wise Contributions:
i.ORBIOs received maximum complaints from top 5 States/ Union Territories (UTs) based on per lakh accounts (deposit and credit) are: UT Chandigarh, the National Capital Territory(NCT) of Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Uttarakhand.
ii.Top 5 states/UTs reported lowest complaints during FY24: Mizoram, Nagaland, UT Ladakh, Manipur, and UT Lakshadweep.
Key Observations:
i.The RBI highlighted instances of unfair interest charging practices by lenders during its onsite examination of banks for the FY24 ending on March 31, 2024.
- It found that Banks are charging interest prematurely, from the date of loan sanction or loan agreement execution rather than the actual date of disbursement.
ii.It noted that in cases where loans were disbursed through Cheque, interest was charged from the cheque date, even if the customer received the cheque days later.
Other Key Points:
i.As per the report, 82 appeals were received by the Appellate Authority against the decisions of the RBI Ombudsman during FY24, of which 72appeals were received from the complainants and 10 appeals were received from the Regulated Entities (REs).
ii.The report mentioned that the Consumer Education and Protection Department has outlined the certain goals for FY25 (from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025) under RBI’s medium-strategy framework (Utkarsh 2.0) and other short term goals. These goals aim to enhance consumer protection and improve grievance redress mechanisms.
About RB-IOS, 2021:
i.It was introduced in November 2021 by integrating 3 erstwhile Ombudsman schemes i.e. Banking Ombudsman Scheme, 2006; Ombudsman Scheme for Non-Banking Financial Companies (OSNBFC), 2018, and Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions (OSDT), 2019.
ii.The Reserve Bank – Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (RB-IOS), 2021 provides an Alternate Grievance Redress (AGR) mechanism for expeditious and cost-free grievance redressal of customer complaints that have not been satisfactorily redressed by the Regulated Entities (REs) or where the complainants have not been replied to within a period of 30 days by the REs.
Recent Related News:
In January 2025, RBI released the list of NBFCs in the Upper Layer (UL) segment under the Scale Based Regulation (SBR) for NBFCs for the year 2024-25. It has retained Tata Sons Private Limited (TSPL) in the NBFC UL list despite its request to de-register as a NBFC, is under examination.
- The list comprises 15 companies that include Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) Housing Finance Limited (HFL), Bajaj Finance Limited (BHL), and Shriram Finance Limited (SFL), among others.
