While announcing the monetary policy this month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had asked the large Pre-Paid Instrument (PPI) issuers to set up an internal ombudsman to address customers’ grievances. Industry experts suggest something similar was needed to ensure that customer grievance is resolved in an effective manner and within a defined timeframe.
Pre-Payment Instruments issuers are mostly the mobile wallet providers, some of which include Paytm, PayU, PhonePe, Amazon Pay, and Mobikwik. With the digital agenda of the Government, these large PPI issuers have witnessed enormous growth in both their transaction scale and customer base, in recent times. With the increase in digital payment services, online related fraud and misconduct have also increased, which has to lead to an increase in customer complaints. Now with an internal ombudsman mechanism customer grievances will be resolved properly and within a defined timeframe.
RBI had launched the Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions earlier this year, wherein a customer could file a complaint with the digital ombudsman. You can, however, only file a complaint with the digital ombudsman if the issuer to whom you have raised the complaint does not reply within 30 days, or does not provide a proper response or rejects the complaint.
In addition to the digital ombudsman launched earlier this year, RBI had directed that all PPIs to have an internal ombudsman which will serve as the first point of help to deal with customers’ complaints. Now, if an individual is not responded by the insurer within 30 days of raising the complain, they can escalate the complaint to RBI’s digital ombudsman.
Here are the wallet grievances that can be addressed, as per the ombudsman scheme;
- Not been able to credit merchant’s account within the appropriate time
- Unable to load funds within defined time in wallets or cards
- Unauthorized/ unknown e-fund transfer
- Refusal to transfer funds or failed to transfer within a defined time
- If fund not given back within a reasonable time or refuse to repay in case of rejected or canceled or unsuccessful transactions
- Delay in crediting the account of the wallet holder in case of a cashback as per the terms and conditions of the promotions offered
- In case of a non-adherence to any other instruction of the RBI on PPI
