KARACHI, June 8: The State Bank has finally made it binding on the banks and development finance institutions or DFIs set up complaint cells to respond to the problems of their customers and redress the same.

The central bank has issued a set of guidelines that banks and DFIs are supposed to follow in dealing with their customers. The circular that contains these guidelines says that SBP receives several complaints daily against bureaucratic attitude of banks and DFIs resulting in either financial loss or damage to the business of the complainants.

"This state of affairs indicates that banks/DFIs either do not have a unit/section to deal with complaints or do not have a proper mechanism/procedure for resolution of public/clients' grievances."

The central bank views this with concern and hence issued some guidelines to make it binding on the banks and DFIs to attend to the customers' complaints. The guidelines issued by the Banking Policy Department of the SBP requires the banks and DFIs to identify and entrust the responsibility to an appropriate senior person to handle all sort of complaints received.

The name and designation as well as contact details of the person so identified along with an officer working with him in this area must be sent to the SBP immediately.

The guidelines further say that the person and the section or unit entrusted with the assignment of redressing customers complaints must acknowledge all the complaints and address/handle the same fairly and promptly.

Such a person and the section or unit also devise a system for redressal of the complaints in an appropriate and courteous manner and the reply to the complainant must be clear and indicate the reasons/rationale of the decision being conveyed to him.

The person or the section dealing with customers complaints must also identify the complaints of recurring nature "and ensure that immediate corrective action is taken in that area." Such a person or his section must monitor the status of the complaints and analyze the data periodically for improving this activity.

"A regular report containing statistics on the volume and type of the complaints received and settled or outstanding should be submitted periodically to the management for review."

The guidelines say that the banks/DFIs must respond to the complaints received by them within 10 working days. "Where a complaint requires further investigation an interim reply must be sent indicating the reasons for the time to be taken and expected date of action or response."

"However, in any case the final reply may be sent within a period not exceeding 45 working days, barring cases where reasonable grounds exist on record for not complying within the prescribed time period." "Regular audit of complaint unit/section must be conducted by internal auditors to check the performance, effectiveness and utility of this unit or section."

The State Bank has asked the banks and DFIs to prepare leaflet indicating the procedure of lodging a complaint and getting it resolved both in English and Urdu, post it on the notice board of each branch and supply a copy of it to the customers on request.

The central bank says it would take action against the banks / DFIs as well as their employees found responsible for negligence in handling complaints.