Background:

Maintaining consumer confidence and trust in the regulated financial services sector promotes financial stability, growth, efficiency and innovation. Even though operations have become increasingly complex and technological capabilities have enabled financial institutions to offer wide range of products and services, protection of customer interest continues to be a top priority for the regulator. The Ombudsman scheme for the regulated entities is aimed to redress multifarious issues pertaining to deficiency in service. In fact, the concept of Internal Ombudsman was introduced almost nine years ago as a forum for customers to obtain grievance redressal within the regulated entity itself, thereby obviating the need to approach the RBI Ombudsman.

Objective:

Although ‘One nation, one ombudsman’, following integration of three Ombudsman schemes of RBI viz. the Banking Ombudsman Scheme, 2006; the Ombudsman Scheme for Non-Banking Financial Companies, 2018; and the Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions, 2019, has been generally effective in dealing with customer complaints, issues pertaining to customer grievance redressal continue. There is also a need felt to provide a platform where the regulator’s expectations are highlighted and an interactive forum for the ombudsmen is provided for discussing issues faced by them. 

Conference Highlights:

The Conference will deal with the following:

• Issues in Customer Services and Protection – Regulatory expectations
• Institutional framework for grievance redressal – Role and future road map for Ombudsmen
• Significance of Financial Education of customers - A demand side challenge and business impact
• Role of technology tools for enhanced customer services and protection – emerging trends
• Enhanced grievance redressal mechanism – Experience sharing