Good Work Circles and Members
Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) did well to protect bank customers from online and card payment frauds by shifting the onus of compensation substantially to banks. In a notification dated 6 July, the RBI introduced two ideas to protect customers: the concept of zero liability, and another of limited liability.
A customer who loses money due to online fraud or negligence on the part of the bank will be fully compensated. Even in the case of third party fraud, if the loss is reported within three working days, the customer will be fully reimbursed by the bank.
However, in the case of customer negligence, like sharing passwords with other people, the liability will be that of the customer till the fraud is reported to the bank. He won’t be responsible for any unauthorised use of this account once he has reported the transaction. The loss must be reported within four to seven days after receiving alerts from the bank about an unauthorised transaction. Even better, the liabilities of the customer are being capped at Rs 5,000-10,000, and in the case of credit cards with limits above Rs 5 lakh, the liability of the customer is capped at Rs 25,000.
The best part of the notification is that customers must be compensated within 10 working days. This is most important, for the real challenge for a customer is getting his money back after reporting fraud. Banks can routinely fob him off with excuses and delay crediting the money by claiming they are investigating the case. more