There has been a significant fall in the number of complaints received by the Office of Banking Ombudsman for the current year, said S. Ganesh, Banking Ombudsman, Chennai, on Friday.
During July 2009 to June 2010 period, the Ombudsman received 1,000 complaints a month, while in the last nine months it came down to about 700 complaints per month. The maximum number of days taken to solve a complaint is 45 days and it was lower in quite a few cases. The compliance level was always above 65 per cent, Mr. Ganesh told The Hindu .
According to him, the drop in complaints could be attributed to several factors such as HR initiatives taken by the department, awareness campaign conducted in remote areas, formal interventions and regular interactions with banks Nodal officers, high level compliance by the banks and tracking of the complaints by the staffers on daily basis.
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With 16 officers, Chennai office dealt with 64 banks (nationalised, foreign, private, scheduled co-operative and regional rural banks) that are located in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar islands, accounting for over 6,270 branches.
Generally, the department used to get complaints regarding loans, remittances and pensions, failed ATM transactions and fee charged on credit card and debit card among others. “However, these kinds of complaints have come down drastically,” he added.
“Last year, Chennai office received 12,727 complaints and ended with a pending list of 480 due to several measures taken by the department. Among the 15 Ombudsman offices, the highest number of complaints was from Tamil Nadu in general and Chennai in particular. But today, we have brought down the pending numbers to around 300. About 90 per cent of complaints came from individuals. The department has decided to issue appreciation letters to our staffers for redressing higher number of complaints,” he said.
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