The Reserve Bank on Friday decided to expand the scope of Internal Ombudsman framework by including Credit Information Companies (CICs) with a view to strengthening grievance redressal system.
The Reserve Bank-Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (RB-IOS) has improved the customer grievance redressal mechanism.
The turnaround time of grievance redressal under RB-IOS has declined considerably, RBI said in Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies.
"With a view to strengthen the internal grievance redress by CICs themselves, it has been decided to mandate CICs to have their own Internal Ombudsman (IO) framework," RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said after unveiling the bi-monthly monetary policy.
The RB-IOS 2021 covers Regulated Entities (REs) such as scheduled commercial banks including urban cooperative banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and non-scheduled primary co-operative banks with a deposit size of Rs 50 crore and above.
In order to make the RB-IOS more broad based, it has been decided to bring CICs also under the ambit of RB-IOS 2021, the statement said adding this will provide a cost-free alternate redressal mechanism to customers of REs for grievances against CICs.
Further, it said, with a view to strengthening the internal grievance redressal of CICs and to make it more efficient, it has also been decided to bring CICs under the Internal Ombudsman (IO) framework.
With regard to outsourcing, the RBI said REs are increasingly using outsourcing as a means for reducing costs as well as for availing expertise not available internally.
Although outsourcing of a permissible activity is an operational decision of REs, it exposes REs to various risks.