Customer complaints against banks up 44 percent

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Mumbai: Customer complaints about banking services during 2008-09 increased by 44 percent, with a majority related to credit card services followed by the failure to meet commitments. According to a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) study, State Bank of India (SBI), ICICI Bank and the local unit of HSBC Holdings saw the largest number of complaints filed against them. The 'Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India, 2008-09' study said that the number of complaints registered with RBI for the year ended 31 March, 2009 rose to 69,117 from 47,887 a year earlier, reports Mint. The number of complaints against public sector banks, which meet some 70 percent or more of India's banking needs, was the highest at 33,141, up from 25,694 during 2007-08. Private sector banks and foreign banks saw 21,982 and 11,700 complaints filed against them, respectively. The SBI group faced most - 18,167 - of the complaints against public sector banks. SBI, the nation's largest lender, alone accounted for 15,306 complaints, with 4,295 related to credit cards, followed by 2,631 over failed commitments. Credit card-related complaints rose to 17,603 from 10,107 last year. Foreign banks had 5,737 credit card-related complaints, against 5,950 for private banks. ICICI Bank, the largest credit card issuer in India with around 8.5 million cards, saw 3,560 credit card-related complaints filed against it, followed by 1,914 filed for failure in meeting commitments made. Among foreign banks, HSBC saw the highest number of complaints - 2,838, of which 1,418 were related to credit cards.