RBI invites customer feedback on bank charges

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has invited suggestions on the levy of service charges by banks on customers. It had recently constituted a working group to formulate a scheme for ensuring "reasonable" bank charges.

The report of the working group titled, Report of the working group to formulate a scheme for ensuring reasonableness of bank charges, has now been placed on RBI's website (www.rbi.org.in).

According to a press release on the RBI site, "views/suggestions on the recommendations of the working group may be sent to the Reserve Bank by email at kazasudhakar@rbi.org.in or faxed to 022-22630482."

The working group had been constituted in response to complaints of "unreasonable and non-transparent service charges" levied by banks ever since the Indian Banks' Association discontinued fixing the benchmark service charges in 1999 and banks were left free to decide these charges.

At that juncture, the banks were asked to ensure that the charges were "reasonable" and not out of line with the average cost of providing the services and that customers with low volumes were not penalised with higher service charges.