Mumbai: Off late there has been a an increasing clamour against the forcible loan recoveries. In an effort to clear their names, banks are now striving towards better customer services and default recovery.
Bank customers complaining of harassment by recovery agents has now forced banks to improve their customer services and recovery standards.
A series of customer complaints have been lodged against banks and recovery agents off late. There have also been stray cases of suicides by loan defaulters and also an arrest of an HDFC bank employee in another case.
Joint commissioner of police Rakesh Maria told CNBC TV 18, " since the arrest of an HDFC bank employee, 4-5 more cases of customer complaints have been registered with the Mumbai police. We are still inquiring. We can't make any arrests. Every defaulter can't come and use the police. We have to be careful."
Sources at HDFC bank say the bank is working out modalities to set up credit counseling centres for customers who are under any sort of financial distress. The bank is also currently reviewing the bank's recovery practices.
ICICI bank has also embarked on strengthening its customer counseling programme called ‘Disha’ across various states.
Experts say, going forward if the banks want to avoid mishaps with customers, they should aggressively do its due diligence and look at the repayment ability of the prospective borrowers.
Besides, experts say, bankers should also concentrate on adhering to the extensive code of conduct on collections and customer service issued by the RBI.
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