Rise in number of complaints against banks

There has been an increase in the number of complaints against banks received by the Office of the Banking Ombudsman (OBO), Thiruvananthapuram, during the previous year.

The number of complaints received during 2014-15 stood at 3,024 as against 2,841 the previous fiscal, a growth of 6.4 per cent.

Annual report

This was disclosed by Uma Sankar, Banking Ombudsman for Kerala, Lakshadweep, and Mahe, during a presentation of the annual report of the office for the fiscal at a media interface on Wednesday.

Complaints pertaining to loans and advances recorded a substantial increase of 61.4 per cent. Of the 481 complaints received in the category, 327 pertained to the education loan segment.

The majority of complaints made by customers were against the SBI group (42.8 per cent), followed by private sector banks (26.4 per cent), nationalised banks (23.5 per cent), and foreign banks (1 per cent).

The highest number of complaints was submitted against the State Bank of Travancore (673). The other banking institutions which led in the category included the State Bank of India (542), Canara Bank (201), and Federal Bank (197).

There were 425 card-related complaints and 274 of them pertained to ATM/debit cards.

Education loan

Even while it has started to receive complaints regarding the decision of the SBT to transfer education loan non-performing assets (NPAs) to Reliance Asset Reconstruction Company (ARC), the OBO seemed helpless in the issue.

“We cannot intervene in the issue as it was beyond the purview of our functioning. The office is yet to consider the complaints.

The terms and conditions of the agreements (of loan accounts which have been transferred) will have to be examined,” R. Gopikrishnan Nair, Deputy General Manager, OBO, Thiruvananthapuram, said.