Attention! RBI to set up internal ombudsman for mobile wallet like Paytm, PhonePe. What it means

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Use of mobile wallets or digital payment has been grown rapidly in the past few months. Following which, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is to set-up an internal ombudsman for digital payment or mobile wallet service providers, including Paytm, PhonePe, Amazon Pay and others. This development comes when RBI announced the monetary policy this month and also asked the large Pre-Paid Instrument (PPI) issuers to set up an internal ombudsman to address customers’ grievances.

According to Financial Express report, RBI is taking this step forward as it wanted to ensure that customer grievance is resolved in an effective manner and within a defined timeframe.

Post demonetisation, the government came up with digital India agenda after which these large PPI issuers have witnessed enormous growth in both their transaction scale and customer base, in recent days. 

However, along with an increase in the use of digital payment, online related fraud has also increased. Several customers have complained about the misconduct. With an internal ombudsman mechanism, RBI seeks to resolve the customer grievances properly and within a defined timeframe.

Earlier this year, RBI had launched the Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions, wherein a customer could file a complaint with the digital ombudsman. However, customers can file complain (online) only if the issuer does not reply within 30 days, or does not provide a proper response or rejects the complaint.

Now in addition to that, RBI had directed all PPIs to have an internal ombudsman which will serve on the priority to help to deal with customers’ complaints. And if any individuals do not get a response by the insurer within 30 days, they can escalate the complaint to RBI’s digital ombudsman.

Here are the digital payment/wallet grievances that can be addressed, as per the ombudsman scheme;

• Not been able to credit merchant’s account within the appropriate time
• Unable to load funds within defined time in wallets or cards
• Unauthorized/ unknown e-fund transfer
• Refusal to transfer funds or failed to transfer within a defined time
• If fund not given back within a reasonable time or refuse to repay in case of rejected or cancelled or unsuccessful transactions
• Delay in crediting the account of the wallet holder in case of a cashback as per the terms and conditions of the promotions offered
• In case of a non-adherence to any other instruction of the RBI on PPI

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