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Abstract

Banking being a service industry a well-defined and functional mechanism to ensure fairness
and satisfaction to the bank users is important hence RBI has undertaken a large number of
initiatives on ensuring fair treatment to customers .However, a number of challenges still
need to be addressed to make customer services responsive to the small customer. The
Banking Ombudsman Scheme attempts to ‘Treating the bank customers fairly’ with the
awakening of consumers on the issues of investor/consumer protection. Banking Ombudsman
offices receive the complaints from general public relating to their grievances against
commercial banks, regional rural banks and scheduled primary co-operative banks.
Complainants have the facility to send the complaints by email, online or by post. As number
of complaint received are though significant and are handled but total consumer awareness
needs to grow in order to the get total satisfaction of consumer and also BOS needs to handle
complaints efficiently and promptly in order to not deny a consumer justice as its delayed is
denied. The Ombudsman plays a unique role in this broader initiative as it not only assists
the consumers but also enables the regulators to understand consumer doubts and
insecurities.81 Schemes such as this act in tandem with other legislations such as the
Consumer Protection Act to effectively address consumer grievances. Provisions in the
scheme such as the prerequisite

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