Guilty bank employees : Ombudsman calls for preparing database

Objective is to prevent the repeat of crimes.

KARACHI:

Banking Mohtasib Pakistan Mansurur Rehman Khan has said that there is a dire need of preparing a database of bank employees found guilty of fraud to minimise chances of their reappointment in other banks.

Khan said this while presenting the Banking Mohtasib Pakistan Annual Report 2010 on Wednesday. He urged the Pakistan Banks Association to formulate a database of ‘tainted’ bank employees to help prevent the repeat of fraud and boost consumer confidence in the banking system.

Khan said, “We recommended the Pakistan Banks Association to establish such a database a few months ago and we hope that they will take swift action.”

Responding to a query, the banking ombudsman said that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) had already the database but the banks association data would further improve the situation. Providing figures, he informed that there had been an alarming increase of 13 per cent in complaints in the category of fraud in 2010 compared to a year earlier, adding that most of these complaints were related to parallel banking and misappropriation of funds.

However, total complaints received by the Banking Mohtasib Secretariat fell to 1,047 in 2010 against 1,608 in 2009, according to the annual report. The combined effect remained almost the same in both years as complaints which were related to trivial matters and not submitted as per required procedure, jumped from 1,615 in 2009 to 2,138 in 2010.

Alarmingly, 34 per cent of the total rejected complaints did not follow the mandatory legal procedure and 14 per cent were rejected on the grounds of policy-related matters.

Out of the total 1,047 complaints in 2010, 303 complaints were related to consumer products, 213 were pertaining to advance loan and deposits, 179 were related to fraud, 107 were against ATMs and 103 were about service inefficiencies. Overall, the ombudsman issued orders directing banks to pay a total amount of Rs132.9 million to the complainants during 2010.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2011.