The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced that it will integrate the consumer grievances redressal under a single ombudsman as opposed to the three grievance redressal schemes working at present.
Key facts
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Currently, there are dedicated ombudsman schemes for the consumer grievance redressal in the banking, non-bank finance companies and digital transactions.
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Now, the bank has decided to integrate the three Ombudsman schemes.
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The central bank has also operationalized the complaint management system (CMS) portal as a one stop solution. This portal will be used for the alternate dispute resolution of the customer complaints which are not resolved by regulated entities.
One Nation One Ombudsman approach
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RBI will adopt the ‘One Nation One Ombudsman’ approach to make the alternate dispute redress mechanism simple and more responsive to the users.
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The mechanism will cater to all the customers from banks, NBFCs and the non-bank issuers of prepaid payment instruments.
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The e-Integrated Ombudsman Scheme will be rolled out in June 2021.
Objectives of the move
The central bank has decided to adopt the approach of “One Nation, One Ombudsman” with the objective of making process of redress of grievances easy. The approach will make the grievance process easy by enable the customers to register the complaints under the integrated scheme with a centralised reference point.
Banking Ombudsman
It is a quasi-judicial authority that was created in the year 2006 under the Banking Ombudsman Scheme 2006. The authority was created to enable the resolution of complaints of bank customers.
Banking Ombudsman Scheme, 2006
The Banking Ombudsman Scheme is an inexpensive forum for the redressal of grievances of bank customers. Banking Ombudsman Scheme was first introduced in the year 1995. The scheme was revised in the year 2002. Currently, the Banking Ombudsman Scheme 2006 is operating.