Bangladesh Bank has received most of the customer complaints against the state-owned banks as their customer services are very poor.

This observation was disclosed in an annual report (2013-14) of Financial Integrity and Customer Services Department (FICSD) of the central bank. 

Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman yesterday unveiled the report at the central bank headquarters in the city in presence of former chairman of Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Golam Rahman, Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor SK Sur Chowdhury and other high officials.

A total of 26% customers lodged complaints against the state-owned banks, which was the highest number compared to the other group of banks, says the report.

However, the number of complaints were 55.52% against the private commercial banks as the number of the banks is higher than the state-owned banks, said FICSD Deputy General Manager Swapan Kumar Roy, who moderated the report unveiling ceremoney. 

“We did not even get proper response from the state-owned banks to resolve the clients’ complains,’’ he added. 

According to the report, the lowest 4% complaints were received against foreign banks followed by 6.89% against specialised banks and 7.53% against non bank financial institutions.

Among the highest complaint receipt banks, first three are state-owned Sonali, Janata and Rupali bank. The number of complaints were 291 against Sonali, 186 against Janata and 185 against Rupali Bank during the fiscal year 2013-14. 

Among the private commercial banks, the highest complaints were received against Islami bank followed by Prime Bank, BRAC Bank, Mercantile Bank, Bangladesh Krishi Bank, Premier Bank and Shahjalal Islami Bank. 

As the complaints against the state-owned banks were more, they have to improve the customer service to compete in the market, said Atiur Rahman. 

He urged to the government to take necessary steps to further improve the standard of these state-owned banks. 

He also called upon the government to appoint honest, efficient and professional directors in the state-owned banks and remove the existing dishonest, inefficient directors from the board.  

Governor also expressed his williness for appointing an ombudsman in the central bank to resolve its official’s complaints.

 The complaints from Chittagong zone were highest 36% of the total number of complaints 669, according to the report.

Of the various types of complaints, 50% were about general banking, 10.71% were about loans and advances, 5.80% were about trade bills related, 5.54% about cards, 1.70% about remittances, 0.72% about mobile banking while rest 25.71% is miscellaneous. 

The number of complaints Bangladesh Bank received were 4,476 in the fiscal year 2013-14, which was 4% higher from the previous fiscal year. 

However, the resolution rate of Bangladesh Bank against the complaints reached to 95.87% in the last fiscal year from 68.46% in the previous year, according to the report.