RBI vide circular dates October 06, 2023 has issued the Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies. The statement clarified that the The Reserve Bank of India, in 2015, introduced an Internal Ombudsman (IO) mechanism in select scheduled commercial banks with the objective to strengthen their Internal Grievance Redress (IGR) system and to ensure efficient and fair resolution of customer complaints by enabling an apex level review within the banks before their rejection. Gradually, the framework has been extended to other regulated entities (REs), viz. select Non-Bank System Participants (non-bank issuers of PPIs), select Non-Banking Financial Companies and all Credit Information Companies.
The guidelines on Internal Ombudsman framework currently in operation for various categories of REs have similar design features but carry certain variations on operational matters. Based on the learnings from the implementation of the extant guidelines, it has been decided to harmonise the same and issue a consolidated Master Direction. The Master Direction shall bring uniformity in matters like timeline for escalation of complaints to IOs, exclusions, temporary absence of the Internal Ombudsman, minimum qualifications for appointing an Internal Ombudsman and updation of reporting formats, in addition to introduction of the post of Deputy Internal Ombudsman. These instructions are expected to further strengthen the IO mechanism and in turn, the grievance redress system in REs.
