Reserve Bank of India’s directives on behavior of recovery agents are being blatantly ignored. Recently there has been a sharp increase in the number of complaints being received by the office of Banking Ombudsman and the Government about vigorous recovery of outstanding loan amount by agents, primarily of private sector banks.
RBI directives already state all banks on their code of conduct in this respect. A government official said, “Training of the recovery agents is key and in many cases the process has not been followed”.
From the banks against whom there have been complaints are leading lenders ICICI and HDFC Bank.
A top official of a private sector bank said the banks are adopting more forceful ways of loan recovery post the debacle suffered at the time of the worldwide financial crisis.
A bank official said, “Banks and credit card issuers have been following a strict regiment and from the bank standpoint it is justifiable to a large extent. Non payment of outstanding cannot be promoted as a culture”.
The office of banking ombudsman has stated that they have obtained around 120 complaints in this respect in 2009-10. The number was negligible before that.
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