Awareness camp on Banking Ombudsman Scheme conducted

Banking Ombudsman, RBI Guwahati, Ashish Ranjan Samal, speaking at the ‘Awareness camp on Banking Ombudsman Scheme, 2006’ held in Dimapur on February 1. (Morung Photo)

Morung Express News
Dimapur | February 1

The Office of Banking Ombudsman, Reserve Bank of India, Guwahati, organized an ‘Awareness camp on Banking Ombudsman Scheme, 2006’ with the objective to create and enhance awareness on the scheme among banking officials and general public and providing avenues for hearing grievances of bank customers.

Banking Ombudsman, RBI Guwahati, Ashish Ranjan Samal and secretary, Rajan Babu, spoke at length on the BO Scheme 2006 and said the scheme enables an expeditious and inexpensive (free) forum for bank customers for resolution of complaints relating to certain services rendered by banks.
Samal said the BO Scheme was introduced in 1995 and presently the Banking Ombudsman Scheme 2006 is in operation. He also informed that as on January 31, 2019, the RBI launched BO scheme for digital transaction.

He said all scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks and scheduled primary co-operative banks are covered under the Scheme.
Samal said the BO can receive and consider any complaint relating to deficiency in banking services including non-payment or inordinate delay in the payment or collection of cheques, drafts, bills etc.; non-acceptance, without sufficient cause, of small denomination notes tendered for any purpose, and for charging of commission in respect thereof; non-acceptance, without sufficient cause, of coins tendered and for charging of commission in respect thereof and non-payment or delay in payment of inward remittances.

The BO also addresses complaints relating to failure to issue or delay in issue of drafts, pay orders or bankers’ cheques; failure to provide or delay in providing a banking facility (other than loans and advances) promised in writing by a bank or its direct selling agents; delays, non-credit of proceeds to parties’ accounts, non-payment of deposit or non-observance of the Reserve Bank directives.

Further, the BO can receive complaints like refusal to open deposit accounts without any valid reason; levying of charges without adequate prior notice to the customer; non-adherence to the instructions of Reserve Bank on ATM / Debit Card and Prepaid Card operations in India by the bank or its subsidiaries and non-disbursement or delay in disbursement of pension.

The officials from BO, RBI Guwahati, said a person can file a complaint before the Banking Ombudsman if the reply is not received from the bank within a period of one month after the bank concerned has received one’s complaint, or the bank rejects the complaint, or if the complainant is not satisfied with the reply given by the bank.

However, the BO will not consider complaints if a person has not approached his/her bank for redressal of his/her grievance first or if the subject matter of the complaint is pending for disposal / has already been dealt with at any other forum like court of law, consumer court etc.
On procedure for filing a complaint before the BO, Samal said one can file a complaint with the Banking Ombudsman simply by writing on a plain paper. One can also file it online or by sending an email to the Banking Ombudsman. There is a form along with details of the scheme in our website, he informed.

A person has to lodge his/ her complaint at the office of the Banking Ombudsman under whose jurisdiction the bank branch complained against is situated.

The BO further dwelled on precautions of using ATM cards.
Chief manager, SBI, RBO, Dimapur, Hatneikim Imsong and Lead Bank manager, RBO Dimapur, Bhairab Kalita,and other SBI staffs assisted the BO officials during the awareness camp.

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