Ms Shankar was responding to posers about the controversial decision of SBT
These companies will be given the 'in-principle' approval for 18 months; Representational image
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Banking Ombudsman Ms Uma Shankar said the RBI had allowed banks to enter into agreement with asset restructuring companies to sell their stressed assets like education or farm loans. Ms Shankar was responding to posers about the controversial decision of SBT to enter into an agreement with Reliance Asset Reconstruction Company to recover dues from students who had taken education loans.
“However, if unfair practices like coercion are found to be involved, we will definitely take note of it,” the Ombudsman said. “Obviously, these asset restructuring companies cannot do what the banks themselves cannot do,” she added. On July 27, while calling for a joint resolution against the SBT-Reliance tie-up in the Assembly, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy termed it “highly deplorable”. The Assembly, cutting across political lines, expressed the fear that Reliance might sub-contract the job to local quotation gangs.
Though it was beyond the ambit of her office, the Ombudsman also touched upon the issue of counterfeit notes coming out of ATM counters. “The RBI has given strict directions to banks to instal state-of-the-art note-sorting machines,” she said.
“Only those notes that are sorted and checked by these machines should be put inside the ATM,” she added. The Ombudsman said that there had been a 6.4 per cent increase in the number of complaints received by her office during the year that ended June 30, 2015. Of the 3,049 complaints, 30 per cent were non-maintainable. Of the 2,133 maintainable complaints, 484 were resolved by mutual settlement. Ms Shankar said that a majority of the complaints were against the SBI group, 42.8 per cent. Maximum number of complaints were against SBT (673), followed by SBI (542). “When there are more branches, complaints are bound to rise,” she reasoned.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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