Chennai saw the number of complaints received under the Reserve Bank of India’s The Ombudsman Scheme for Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFC-O Scheme) jump 708.63% to 1,124 in 2018-19 from 139 in 2017-18. Chennai accounted for 28.16% of the total complaints received under the scheme.
Overall, complaints against NBFCs have nearly doubled to 3,991 in 2018-19 from 675 in 2017-18, according to the annual report of the ‘Ombudsman Schemes of RBI for the year 2018-19’. Non-adherence to the fair practices code was the major category of complaints received accounting for 40.44%, followed by non-observance RBI directions to NBFCs at 17.21%, levying of charges without notice, 12.63% and lack of transparency in contract/loan, 9.17%.
Out of the 1,124 complaints received, Chennai disposed of 1,121 complaints, which gives it a disposal rate of 99.73%. Overall the disposal rate was 99.10%.
RBI follows a calendar cycle which starts from July 1 and ends on June 30.
The Scheme is applicable to NBFCs which are authorized to accept deposits or have customer interface, with assets size of ₹100 crore or above, as on the date of the audited balance sheet of the previous financial year.
The scheme is administered from the offices of the NBFC-Os in four metro centres viz. Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi for handling complaints from the respective zones, so as to cover the entire country.
The Scheme was initially operationalised for all deposit taking NBFCs in the country. Upon review, it was decided to extend its coverage to Non-Deposit Taking NBFCs having customer interface, with assets size of ₹100 crore or above with effect from April 26, 2019.
