'RBI Just Taking Baby Steps On Customer Rights'
CHENNAI: Customers expected the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to leap forward with a strong regulation for consumer protection than taking baby steps with its draft charter on customer rights, a consumer activist said. ”
The RBI could have learnt from insurance regulator IRDA (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority) brought out a separate regulation for protection of policyholders several years back. The RBI has taken just baby steps to protect the customers,” S.Saroja, co-ordinator, Citizen consumer and Civic Action Group (CAG) told IANS.
The CAG is a city based consumer action group. ”There is no separate regulation for protection of customers of financial service providers (FSP) or at least the customers of banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs). People have recourse only to the Consumer Protection Act,” a senior employee of a public sector bank told IANS.
The RBI came out with its draft charter on customer rights and has called for comments by Sep 22. According to RBI, the five basic rights of a customer are: fair treatment, transparency, fair and honest dealings, product suitability, privacy and grievance redress and compensation.
“The basic rights mentioned by RBI are really very basic. These are taken for granted in an open market economy. Further, the draft charter is of a general nature. The only positive feature is that the RBI has now started talking about compensation to be paid for deficiency in service,” Saroja said.
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