‘Scores of complaints lodged against top 5 banks’

Ombudsman says justice is delayed in one of five cases due to unresponsive attitude of banks

KARACHI:

Pakistan’s banking ombudsman says justice to consumers is delayed in one out of every five cases due to banks’ dodging responses – currently, the highest number of complaints are against the top five banks in the country.

While addressing a press conference at the Institute of Bankers Pakistan (IBP) on Thursday, Ombudsman Muhammad Kamran Shehzad said, “The law demands banks to resolve cases within the stipulated time of 50-60 days. In several cases, however, banks do not share basic requirements (such as evidence, records, documents etc) for more than two-months. This increases the time of resolution of the complaints.”

Sometimes, banks deliberately delay sharing the required information which gives a sense that the “banks are trying to hide the truth”.

Presenting a slide, the ombudsmen exhibited the names of the top 10 banks against whom the highest number of complaints had been lodged. Unsurprisingly, each of these banks claim to disburse the highest level of services, a large number of branches, high volume of deposits, high number of bank accounts and huge profits.

“Almost 85% of the complaints are against the top 10-11 banks in each of the past five years,” said Shehzad, adding that the number of complaints have apparently grown along with size of the banks.

“The highest number of complaints are registered against large banks as their operations widen with the increase in number of branches,” he said. Banks usually give a sluggish response in about 15-20% cases. Otherwise, 70-75% complaints are resolved amicably almost every year, he said.

The ombudsman has, however, amicably resolved disputes worth almost Rs1 billion in the previous one-year ended December 31, 2022.

“We have amicably resolved 21,822 complaints (almost 62%) out of a total of 35,265 complaints in 2022,” said the ombudsman.

The number included 326 complaints (almost 1%) received from overseas.

Responding to questions, he clarified that complaints against the volatility in the rupee-dollar exchange rate, little to no availability of dollars to importers and banks having pocketed heavy earnings through undervaluing the rupee, do not come under his ambit. “We only resolve disputes related to ‘banking transactions’,” he said

“According to rough estimates, almost 60% the cases received are resolved in favour of the consumers, while the remaining 40% are resolved in favour of the banks,” he said.

Giving examples of the nature of some of the complaints dealt with by the ombudsman, he explained, “A bank charged their client an annual renewal fee unethically on a credit card which had been blocked after the man retired from his job in 2020. Other examples of where the ombudsman stepped in are when a consumer lost money after a bank switched-on digital banking on his card without his consent; an ATM machine did not deliver money deducted from a consumer’s account and financial transactions were made through debit cards abroad.

He explained that while unsatisfied parties have the right to appeal to the President of Pakistan, “So far, the president has upheld 98% of the decisions taken by the banking ombudsman.”

Of a total 175,000 complaints resolved in the past five-years, only 350 are in the courts, he said.

The outreach has also increased with the ombudsman having open two new offices – one in Faisalabad and the other in Muzaffarabad in 2022. To aid customers far and wide, the ombudsman has also introduced an online portal with effect from January 1, 2023. Soon, the portal will equip the customer with the ability to lodge and track complainants via the mobile application and the portal itself.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 10^th, 2023.

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