RBI review: What do banks do about your ATM complaints

Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) have gone through a metamorphosis of their own even since country’s first ATM was rolled out in 1987. And though ATMs have served the public by and large by doing away with the need to visit a branch banks, like every other service, ATMs do at times give customers a hard time, and thus result in complaint.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently conducted a review of ATM operations of banks with large ATM network. The objective of the review was to identifying major complaint-prone operational areas and steps to overcome these. These were the complaints which were identified by the apex bank.

[caption id=“attachment_825853” align=“alignright” width=“380”]  ATMs do at times give customers a hard time, and thus result in complaint. AFP[/caption]

1. **Discrepancies in cash dispensation:**When ATM fails to dispense cash at all or dispenses a lower amount of cash than what you had demanded, and yet your account was debited by demanded amount. To deal with this issue the apex bank had asked banks to resolve the complaints within 7 days, or a penalty for failure would be paid by the bank to the costumer. According to RBI, “Online monitoring of ATMs having high number of dispenser problems, follow up with manufacturers for periodical preventive maintenance, training of custodians to ensure proper cash loading and oversight of Senior Management on resolution and corrective action are some of the steps taken to address the discrepancies in cash dispensation.”

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2. Cash-out (Machines running out of cash): To resolve the issue of machines running out of cash, banks have now taken an initiative to load ATMs with currency based on the frequency of cash dispensation to ensure that the ATMs do not run out of cash during peak period.

3. Quality of Notes : To ensure that you get good quality notes and not torn, soiled notes, major banks have taken efforts to ensure that ATM dispense freshly minted notes, or only those notes which are fit enough to be dispensed by ATMs.

4. Security Measures: To deal with ever increasing number of frauds that happen via ATM, banks have taken security measures, like having a caretakers at offsite ATMs and sensitive locations, this is done with the aim to discourage attempts to tamper with the ATM.

To read the RBI circular, read this.

Okay, so this is according to the review done by RBI, and good to see that banks are taking initiatives. But, there is still a good possibility that what the review says, is very different than what you experience. For instance, an absent caretaker at a sensitive ATM location. Or may be you still get torn, soiled notes from the ATM. In short, if you have a complaint, we suggest you approach the bank with your issue. Also read this to know more about banking ombudsman system .