PM launches schemes for financial inclusion

The Retail Direct scheme will allow individuals to open their government securities account with the RBI, aimed at widening the investor base for sovereign bonds as the central bank seeks to fund the government’s massive lending programme. The initiative was announced by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das in February.

The securities on offer are bonds sold by the central government, state development loans, or bonds issued by state governments, and sovereign gold bonds, whose price is pegged to gold.

Individual investors can buy bonds by opening retail direct gilt accounts with the RBI.

“With the RBI Retail Direct Scheme, small investors in the country have a safe way to invest in government securities,” Modi said at the virtual launch.

Investors can buy government bonds in the primary auction, through which the central and state governments sell their securities in the debt market.

RBI has allowed retail investors to go for ‘non-competitive bidding’, which means they can submit bids without specifying the price. Bonds are allotted to investors at a price established by competitive bidding between financial institutions.

The Prime Minister also launched the Integrated Ombudsman Scheme of RBI to make it easier for customers to redress complaints related to banking and digital payments.

Customers can now report their complaints related to banks, NBFCs and digital payment companies at one place.

Once a complaint is registered, customers can track its status, submit relevant documents and get a response from the Ombudsman.

They can also use the multilingual toll-free number to get relevant information regarding grievance redressal and complaint registration.

An Ombudsman is a public authority that consumers can approach if they are not satisfied with the grievance redressal mechanism of a financial institution.

Till now, there were three different Ombudsman schemes for the three categories of financial intermediaries. The link to the Grievance Redressal Portal will be available on the RBI website.

The Integrated Ombudsman Scheme covers banks, non-bank lenders and other entities that the RBI controls.

“One Nation, One Ombudsman is a progressive step towards bringing the currently differently organized redressal framework into a unified form,” said Srinath Sreedharan, Member of Governance Council at Fintech Association Consumer Empowerment.

“This will increase the speed and efficiency of consumer complaints being dealt with by regulated entities,” he said.

Highlighting that the banking sector has been reformed in the last few years from financial inclusion to technological integration, the PM said, “We have seen their strength in this difficult time of Covid. The decisions of RBI also helped in magnifying the impact of major decisions taken by the government in recent times.”