‘Do not repeatedly harass customers for KYC documents’, RBI Governor’s strong message to banks
New Delhi| RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra told banks not to call customers repeatedly to submit ‘Know Your Customer (KYC) documents. Speaking at the annual conference of RBI ombudsmen, Malhotra said, we need to ensure that once the documents are submitted to the financial institution on behalf of the customer, there will be no emphasis on retrieving the same documents.
The RBI Governor regretted that most banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) have not provided the facility to their branches or offices to obtain information from the central database. This causes inconvenience to customers. Keeping everyone’s interest in mind, it can be made easier soon.
Malhotra said that banks need to improve consumer services and it is also their duty. His comments come at a time when bank customers are complaining of inconvenience on social media platforms due to repeated requests to submit KYC.
RBI Governor warned banks not to misclassify customer complaints. Doing so is a gross regulatory violation. In 2023-24, banks had received one crore customer complaints, he said. This number will increase further if complaints received against other regulated entities are included. Of these complaints, 57 per cent required the mediation or intervention of the RBI Ombudsman.
