Consumer complaints on digital payments grew by 9 pc: RBI

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that ATM debit cards and credit cards contributed to 22.8 percent of the total consumer complaints it received between July 2017 and June 2018. Another 5.2 percent were related to mobile and electronic banking transactions.

Including these figures, digital transactions (including mobile, internet, ATM debit and credit cards) accounted for 28 percent of the total consumer complaints received by the Banking Ombudsman in the above stated period. This is a 9 percent increase over the previous year (2016-17).

Also read: Debit card numbers are falling across India. Here’s why

In 2017-18, it received a total of 163,590 complaints, and stated that the disposal rate for these complaints stood at 96.5 percent between 2017-18 as opposed to 92 percent in 2016-17. 

The Banking Ombudsman Scheme (BO Scheme) was introduced in 1995 as a cost-free and expeditious grievance redressal mechanism for bank customers. Over the years, it has gained significant traction.

Of the total 163,590 complaints, 14,691 were due to non-payment of cash. This means that account was debited but cash was not dispensed by ATMs. Another 1,166 were related to less or excess amount of cash dispensed by ATMs.

965 of them were relating to account debited more than once for one transaction at an ATM or a POS machine, while 2,117 of them were related to stolen or cloned cards.

Also read: Will India's payments landscape see a future without debit and credit cards?

12,647 complaints were about credit cards. Of that, 30 percent were regarding incorrect billing or debits. Another 8 percent were about incorrect reporting status of credit information to the Credit Information Bureau, while 5 percent were about threatening calls and/or inappropriate approach by recovery agents.   

YourStory recently reported that, despite expectations of debit card number crossing 1 billion after it hit an all-time high of 998 million in October last year, the opposite happened. In fact, a total of 67 million debit cards went off the grid between October 2018 and January 2019. As of February 2019, the total number of debit cards in the country stood at 944.5 million. 

On the other end, the number of credit cards in the country grew from 42 million in October last year to 45 million in January this year.

In February 2019, the total number of credit cards in circulation was 46 million.  

Also read: RBI goes live with Ombudsman Scheme for redressal of complaints against payment players