By IANS,
Kolkata : While the number of complaints received by the Office of Banking Ombudsman (OBO) of West Bengal and Sikkim against new private sector and foreign banks have declined, those against nationalised banks have increased in the last three years, an official said Friday.
“Private and foreign banks have become much more serious about customer service and have tightened their internal redressal mechanism,” banking ombudsman for West Bengal and Sikkim M.S. Soy told a media conference here.
“Some of these banks also have an internal ombudsman scheme. They also do a regular audit to look into the customer complaints,” Soy said.
He said the public sector banks also had an internal redressal mechanism, but it was not as effective.
During the last three years total number of complaints received by the OBO in West Bengal and Sikkim, however, registered a steady decline.
According to Soy, the OBO received 4,838 complaints during this year (July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012) compared with 5,192 complaints in 2010-11. As many as 5,326 complaints had been received in 2009-10.
“The declining trend in the complaints received and dealt with indicates the healthy impact of the actions taken by BO’s office on complaint resolution making banks more pro-active in handling customer grievances,” he said.
The official informed that failed ATM transactions, pension payments and grievances pertaining to loans were some of the main issues leading to the complaints.