In another case, the RBI responded to an HSBC card holder's grievance with a systemic solution. On hearing how the Bank's call centre seemed unable to resolve a genuine grievance (where an award of Rs 101 was credited and reversed from a card holder's account and then sought to be recovered from him along with penal interest), the RBI quickly ordered all banks to post a complaint form on the home page of their website. It also proposes to provide links to these pages (complaint and service charges) from its own website. Hopefully, this will signal that the regulator plans to monitor compliance very closely.

The decision on No-call-directories is another move in the same direction but with limited compliance. While several banks have responded well and ensured that a link to the “No call” registration is on their home page, not every bank has done so. We found the link to Citibank’s No-call registration only after calling the bank. Then too, we discovered that it could be accessed only after clicking on to the pages for specific product categories such as credit cards, personal loans or car finance. This is impossible for a non-Citibank customer to find. More importantly, it is unfair to ask non-bank customers to go through this tortuous process. This is another area where RBI can provide a links to every bank’s No-call-directory from its own website. Or better still; work at creating a single unified directory for all banks.

Another important effort by the RBI is to ensure that the bank's own grievance redressal machinery acts as the first point of resolution and only the more difficult complaints are escalated to the BO. A few months ago, in response to a query, RBI Deputy Governor Usha Thorat told us, “We are sensitising the banks to strengthen their customer grievance redressal machinery”. Several banks are indeed very sensitive to customer issues, but the industry in general has a long way to go.

... contd.