New Delhi, Dec. 4 -- Soon after assuming office at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) almost a year ago, Governor Sanjay Malhotra had flagged the central bank's growing concern over the banking sector's disregard for customer service, especially the scant resources that banks earmark for timely redressal of grievances.

The 2024-25 annual report of the Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (IOS), a framework designed for complaint handling, offers details and analysis of the sector's receipt and resolution of complaints. It shows the scale of the problem that needs to be tackled.

At a broad level, the IOS platform received 1,334,244 complaints during 2024-25, a rise of more than 13.5% over 2023-24. How lightly the banking industry appears to take cus...