Govt Orders All Digital Wallets, Payment Apps To Have 24*7 Customer Care From This Date

In today’s monetary policy statement, certain measures for the protection of common bank account holders has been announced by RBI.

This includes integrated ombudsman scheme, allowing retail investors to open Gilt accounts with RBI, setting up of 24*7 helpline for digital payment services and CTS across all bank branches.

Digital transactions, in recent years, have registered massive growth as various modes of digital payments are encouraged by the government. A lot of grievance redressal has to be done as still many users face difficulties during transaction.

24*7 Helpline For Digital Payment Services

For addressing customer queries in respect of various digital payment products, a 24×7 is being envisaged by the Payment Systems Vision document of RBI. Not only will this helpline build trust and confidence, but also will reduce the expenditure incurred for addressing queries and grievances, on both financial and human resources.

By September 2021, major payment system operators would be required to facilitate setting-up a helpline. This centralized industry-wide 24×7 helpline will address the customer queries in respect of various digital payment products, also it will give the information available on various grievance redress mechanisms.

A facility to register as well as resolve the customer complaints through the helpline, is what RBI is considering going forward.

CTS & Ombudsman:-

Today, covering around 1.5 lakh branches, The Cheque Truncation System (i.e CTS) is in use since 2010. However, it has come to the observation of RBI that about 18,000 bank branches are still outside any formal clearing arrangement. As a result, by September 2021, RBI has proposed to bring all such branches under the CTS clearing mechanism.

Since, Financial consumer protection has always been the priority of the central bank, RBI has three Ombudsman as an alternate dispute resolution mechanism. Out of three, one each is there for banking, Non-Banking Financial Companies and Digital transactions.

However, to approach grievance redressal, ‘One Nation One Ombudsman’ approach has been decided and will be implemented by RBI in order to e alternate dispute redressal mechanism simpler and more responsive to the customers of regulated entities. In June 2021, The Integrated Ombudsman Scheme will be rolled out.

For both, the RBI & the Government of India, encouraging retail participation in the Government securities market has been the focus area.

RBI, in order to do that as well as improve the ease of access, has decided to move beyond the aggregator model. Along with the facility to open their gilt securities account (i.e. retail direct) with the RBI, it has also decided to provide retail investors online access to the government securities market.