New Delhi, Aug 12 (IANS) The Reserve Bank of India has, from time to time, underscored the importance of clear and accessible communication between banks and their customers, stressing the need to use the customer’s preferred language, the Parliament was informed on Tuesday.

“RBI’s Master Circular on Customer Service in Banks states, inter alia, that all customer-facing materials at the branches of Scheduled Commercial Banks must be made available in Hindi, English, and the concerned regional language,” Pankaj Chaudhary, Minister of State for Finance, said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

Reinforcing this requirement, the RBI, through a letter on September 30, 2024, reiterated that all customer communications must invariably be issued in a trilingual format — Hindi, English, and the relevant regional language — to ensure transparency, clarity, and convenience for all, the Minister said further.

According to the minister, all banks have a robust board-approved grievance redressal mechanism in place to address complaints.

“Further, the Reserve Bank – Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (RB-IOS), 2021, provides a cost-free platform for redressal of complaints against RBI-regulated entities (REs) in matters relating to deficiency in service, if the grievance is not redressed or reply is not given by the RE within the prescribed timeline,” Chaudhary said.

The government, through the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) portal, has had a feedback call centre since June 2022, to assess citizen satisfaction after grievance disposal, and the feedback data gets forwarded to the banks concerned for appropriate action, the Minister informed.

Further, RBI’s toll-free Contact Centre (14448), operational since November 2021, provides information on the grievance redressal mechanism, assistance in filing complaints, and updates on existing cases.

While the Contact Centre (CC) is available 24×7 through the Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS), the facility to connect to the CC personnel is available from Monday to Saturday (except National Holidays) in Hindi, English and 10 regional languages.

–IANS

aps/na