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Education loans top list of complaints received by Banking Ombudsman

Ashikavinod | Friday, September 30, 2016 3:17 PM IST

Education loans top list of complaints received by Banking Ombudsman

A total of 78 per cent of issues pertaining to educational loans provided by banks to individuals were the major complaints received by the Regional Banking Ombudsman.

The overall complaints received by the Banking Ombudsman increased to 8,645 during the period 2015-16 from 8,285 registered during same period last year, a release said today.

“The total complaints received under Loans and Advances during the period 2015-16 was 1,382 of which 78 per cent were related to educational loans alone,” it said.

Nationalised banks including the country’s largest public sector bank, State Bank of India topped the list receiving 67 per cent of complaints on services provided to customers.

The Regional Ombudsman Office which covers Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands received a total of 8,539, 89 and 17 complaints, respectively from these regions.

About 400 complaints were processed through the first resort complaints module in which the Ombudsman receives the complaints directly and directs the banks to address the them from their end.

About 50 per cent of grievances were received online whereas 90.4 per cent of them were from individual customers.

Many people take loans for higher education, especially for studying abroad as the tuition fee is too high, added to which are the expenses of living in a foreign country. There is only a limited amount of money parents can send their child abroad at a certain amount of time.

Regular transactions of such a nature can be subject to currency fluctuations unless people freeze the amount with the bank.