Only 12 of country's 51 banks get 'high' score for customer services

Only one fourth of the 51 banks in the country are rated 'high' for complying with Banking Codes and Standards Board of India (BCSBI) codes, which focuses on fair treatment of customers.

BCSBI is an independent body set up by the RBI. It's objectives are to promote good banking practises, setting minimum standards, increasing transparency, achieving higher operating standards and promoting a cordial banker-customer relationship.

Of the 12 banks rated 'high', only one public sector lender, IDBI Bank, featured in the list and the rest were private and foreign banks, according to the annual code compliance rating released by BCSBI on Tuesday.

Among the banks that scored high rating include RBL Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, DCB Bank, IndusInd Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, HSBC and Citibank. RBL Bank's score was highest at 95. In the fiscal 2016-17, all banks average score in code compliance stood at 77 which was slightly lower than the score of 78 in the year ended 2014-15, the report said.

"Although private and public sector banks secured a score of above average to high and average to above average respectively, there was a marginal decrease in the overall average score of banks to 77 in the fiscal 2017, from 78 in the fiscal 2015," the report said.

BCSBI's chairman A C Mahajan said fall in average score from 78 to 77 was a matter of concern. "Not only have overall average scores fallen, even some banks have been downgraded," Mahajan said.

He said with stiff competition among banks to retain customers, lenders need to look into areas that need improvement and pay close attention to monitoring code compliance.

The rating covered public sector, private, foreign and scheduled urban cooperative banks. Banks were rated on their fair banking practises based on five broad categories information dissemination, transparency, grievance redressal, customer centricity and customer feedback. Some additional feedback was also taken from 8,485 banking customers across the country.