RBI Ombudsman saw 13% increase in consumer complaints in FY25: Here's how to resolve your grievances

There was a 13% increase in the consumer complaints received under the Ombudsman scheme in FY25, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said.

The RBI operates an Ombudsman scheme, a grievance redressal mechanism for resolving customer complaints regarding deficiencies in services offered by banks, NBFCs, payment system participants, and credit information companies (CICs). This is a single umbrella scheme under which all complaints against any regulated entity are entertained.

In FY 2024-25, over 13.34 lakh complaints under the RBI's ombudsman scheme were received, an increase of 13.55% over the previous year. The complaints were sent via email or letter to the CRPC or through the Complaint Management System (CMS) portal.

Complaints against banks

Complaints against the banks comprised the largest portion (2.41 lakh), accounting for 81.53% of complaints received, followed by NBFCs (43.8K), accounting for 14.80% during FY2024-25. Among the banks, the share of complaints received against private sector banks was the highest and increased from 34.39% in FY 2023-24 to 37.53% in FY 2024-25.

However, the share of complaints received against the public sector banks, which was the highest in FY 2023-24, declined from 38.32% in FY 2023-24 to 34.80% in FY 2024-25.

Loans and advances

Category-wise, the highest number of complaints was related to loans and advances (29.25%), followed by credit cards (17.15%), mobile/electronic banking (16.86%) and opening of deposit accounts (16.84%).

Geographically, the highest number of complaints was received in metro cities (45.86%), followed by urban cities (25.64%), semi-urban (18.46%) and rural areas (10.04%).

The disposal rate declined from 95.10% to 93.07% in FY25, according to the RBI data. During the year, ORBIOs (Office of the Reserve Bank of India Ombudsman) handled 3.12 lakh complaints which included 14,667 brought from the previous year. A total of 2.90 lakh complaints were disposed of during the year.

Contact centre

The Contact Centre (CC) is a toll-free facility (14448) to provide information / clarifications to the public. The contact centre received 9,27,598 calls during FY 2024-25, as compared to 7,19,694 in FY 2023-24. Of these, 60.64% (5,62,452) of the calls were attended through the IVRS facility, 38.59% (3,57,927) of the calls were attended directly by the customer care personnel, and only 0.78% (7,219) of calls were abandoned.

How to file a complaint against your bank

I. Before approaching the Ombudsman, it is vital to file a complaint with the regulated entity (RE), such as a bank or NBFC.

II. If you do not get a reply within 30 days from the lodgement of the complaint from the RE or if the complaint is rejected wholly or partially by the RE, the complaint can be registered with the RBI's Ombudsman.

III. For that, you need to visit the RBI's website and enter this link.

IV. Now, under the grievance redressal, click the link given under the Ombudsman scheme.

V. It will take you to the complaint management system where you need to click the orange button on the top left of webpage.

VI. Enter the captcha to proceed. On the next page, you need to enter your name and mobile number. Enter OTP to proceed further.

VII. Now you can file your complaint by entering details such as address, name of organisation and other details.

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