INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched two customer-centric initiatives of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with a view to provide
opportunities to retail investors to participate in the government securities market and contribute towards nation-building.The two
initiatives of RBI -- retail direct scheme and integrated ombudsman scheme -- will also promote financial inclusion, he said.The Prime
Minister, while launching two innovative, customer-centric initiatives, said these schemes would expand the scope for investment and improve
customer grievance redressal mechanism.The retail direct scheme, he said, would provide access to small investors to earn assured returns by
investing in securities and it will also help the government to garner funds for nation-building.On the Reserve Bank-Integrated Ombudsman
Scheme (RB-IOS), he said, it is aimed at further improving the grievance redress mechanism for resolving customer complaints against
entities regulated by the central bank.With the launch of the scheme, he said, "One Nation-One Ombudsman" has become a reality.The RBI
Retail Direct Scheme is aimed at enhancing access to the government securities market for retail investors
It offers retail investors a new avenue for directly investing in the securities issued by the centre and the state governments.The
investors will be able to easily open and maintain their government securities accounts online with the RBI for free
Leveraging technological advancements, the scheme offers a portal avenue to invest in central government securities, treasury bills, state
development loans and sovereign gold bonds.The scheme places India in a list of select few countries offering such a facility.This scheme
(RB-IOS) will do away with the jurisdictional limitations as well as limited grounds for complaints
RBI will provide a single reference point for the customers to submit documents, track status of complaints filed and provide feedback.The
complaints that are not covered under the ombudsman scheme will continued to be attended to by the Customer Education and Protection Cells
(CEPCs) which are located in the 30 regional offices of RBI.With increased awareness, digital penetration and financial inclusion there were
steep rise in the number of complaints against various regulated entities
The number of complaints shot up from 1.64 lakh in 2017-18 to 3.30 lakh complaints in 2019-20, as per RBI data.The RBI in the recent past
took several steps to strengthen the customer grievance redressal system of regulated entities including issuance of guidelines for
strengthening of Internal Ombudsmen, graded regulatory and supervisory actions, and launch of Complaints Management System (CMS) in 2019.The
RBI after review decided to integrate the three ombudsman schemes into one and also simplified the scheme by covering all complaints
involving deficiency in service by centralising the receipt and initial processing of complaints to enhance process efficiency.RBI's
alternate grievance redress mechanism currently comprises of three ombudsman schemes viz - the Banking Ombudsman Scheme (BOS), launched in
1995, the Ombudsman Scheme for Non-Banking Financial Companies (OS-NBFC), 2018 and the Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions (OSDT),
2019.The schemes are administered through 22 offices of RBI Ombudsman (ORBIOs)
Complaints that do not fall within the ambit of the Ombudsman mechanism are handled by the Consumer Education and Protection Cells (CEPCs)
functioning at 30 regional offices of RBI.The three schemes, having evolved over different periods of time, had specified grounds of
complaints which acted as a limiting factor, had different grounds of complaints, which led to uneven redress across the customers of
different entities, and had different compensation structures.
