Version : 9.0
Prepared by : Customer Grievance Redressal Committee
Authorized by: |
Issue/Last date: |
Version No. |
Controlled Copy |
Central Operations and Legal & Compliance |
April, 2018 |
1.0 |
|
Central Operations and Legal & Compliance |
June 2020 |
2.0 |
|
Customer Grievance Redressal Committee |
June 2021 |
3.0 |
|
Customer Grievance Redressal Committee |
November 2021 |
4.0 |
|
Customer Grievance Redressal Committee |
May 2023 |
5.0 |
|
Customer Grievance Redressal Committee |
February 2024 |
6.0 |
|
Customer Grievance Redressal Committee |
November 2024 |
7.0 |
|
Customer Grievance Redressal Committee |
February 2025 |
8.0 |
|
Customer Grievance Redressal Committee |
May 2025 |
9.0 |
Approved by : The Board of the Company
Last Date of Approval : May 23, 2025
This document remains the property of Arohan Financial Services Limited. This policy is intended to guide the Customer Care Department within the Company and outside the Company. It is not to be used for any other purposes, copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or means or carried outside the Company premises without the prior written consent of the Company.
This policy on Customer Grievance Redressal of Arohan Financial Services Limited (“Arohan/the Company,”) is set out as a mechanism available within the organization to enable the customers of Arohan to lodge their queries / complaints / grievances and/or give their feedback or suggestions to Arohan in relation to their interactions with Arohan, including financial assistance, if any, being considered for them and for addressing the same in a time-bound manner by following the provisions provided herein.
Further this policy has been prepared in terms of: -
Master Direction DNBR.PD.008/03.10.119/2016-17:
Master Direction - Non-Banking Financial Company - Systemically Important Non-Deposit taking Company and Deposit taking Company (Reserve Bank) Directions, 2016 ("Direction") which is substituted by Master Direction – Reserve Bank of India (Non-Banking Financial Company –Scale Based Regulation) Directions, 2023 ("Direction") and its amended thereof.
Master Direction – Reserve Bank of India (Regulatory Framework for Microfinance Loans) Directions, 2022 (Updated as on July 25, 2022)
• Each RE shall have a dedicated mechanism for redressal of recovery related grievances. The details of this mechanism shall be provided to the borrower at the time of loan disbursal.
Master Direction - Reserve Bank of India (Internal Ombudsman for Regulated Entities) Directions, 2023
• The NBFC shall internally escalate all such complaints to the IO within a period of three weeks from the date of receipt of the complaint. The IO and the NBFC shall ensure that the final decision is communicated to the complainant within 30 days from the date of receipt of the complaint by the NBFC.
• In case of complaints that are fully or partly rejected even after examination by the IO, the NBFC shall necessarily advise to the complainant as part of the reply that he/she can approach the RBI Ombudsman for redress (if the complaint falls under the RBI Ombudsman mechanism) along with complete details. The advice should include the link to Reserve Bank's portal (cms.rbi.org.in) for online filing of customer complaints.
Customers can lodge their grievances pertaining to deviations from standard norms and practices, behaviour of staff, products and services and non-adherence to the Fair Practices Code through any of the following channels:
Customers can submit their grievances at any of our branch offices. A complaint register is placed at the branch for customers to register their grievances. Customers may inform the ABH/BH/Relationship Manager about their complaint when they visit the branch. The number of CSR is shared in the center register. The complaints registered at the branch will be shared with the customer care team through the SAMADHAN portal for updating in ZOHO CRM which will ensure complete visibility of complaints registered from all channels along with their resolutions. Customers can also visit our regional/ zonal or head office to raise any complaint and the mentioned complaint will be shared with the Customer care team through the SAMADHAN portal.
Customers also have the option of writing a letter addressed to the GRO as per the details given below;
The Grievance Redressal Officer: Mr. Bikash Kumar Gupta
Arohan Financial Services Limited
PTI Building, 4th Floor, DP Block, DP-9, Sector-V,
Salt Lake, Kolkata – 700091, West Bengal
Customers can also submit their grievances through email at customercare@arohan.in by providing full disclosures of Loan account details, details of the complainant and specific instances of the cause of complaint. Complaints received by e-mail shall be acknowledged by e-mail.
Customer can register their complaints on the toll-free number (1800 -103 2375) from Monday to Friday (10 am to 6 pm) which offers multilingual support through a customer insights team. A cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system has been introduced to enhance the customer experience and provide timely solutions. The customer insights team is responsible for handling these queries and complaints of the customers, and also provides solutions to customers as per the agreed mechanism and procedure.
Customer can register their complaint on WhatsApp number (7605027711) from Monday to Friday (10 am to 6 pm). Similarly, the resolution to the complaint will be ensured according to the Customer Grievance Mechanism (Annexure A).
If any complaint reported to the branch/ customer care has not been resolved as per TAT from the date of lodging the complaint with the Company, or if the customer is not satisfied with the resolution provided for the complaint made by him/her, he/she may also approach Arohan GRO by calling his/her contact number as given below. The telephone numbers, complete address and email address etc., will be prominently displayed on the Arohan website/branches/offices for ease of contact by the customers of Arohan. GRO will revert back within 10 working days
Name: Mr. Bikash Kumar Gupta.
The Grievance Redressal Officer
Arohan Financial Services Limited
PTI Building, 4th Floor, DP Block, DP-9, Sector-V,
Salt Lake, Kolkata – 700091, West Bengal
Contact details of GRO: 033-40427726 and 9903019085 Monday to Friday (10 am to 6 pm)
E-mail: gro@arohan.in
If any complaint reported to the branch, customer care or GRO has not been resolved as per TAT from the date of lodging the complaint with the Company or if the customer is not satisfied with the resolution provided for the complaint made by him/her, he/she may also approach Arohan PNO by calling his/her contact number as given below. The telephone number, complete address and email address. will be prominently displayed on the Arohan website/branches, and offices for ease of contact by the customers of Arohan. PNO will revert within 5 working days:
Principal Nodal Officer (Mr. Anup Kumar Gupta)
Arohan Financial Services Limited
PTI Building, 4th Floor,
DP Block, DP-9, Salt Lake City
Kolkata- 700091
Phone: 033- 40156040 Monday to Friday (10 am to 6 pm)
E-mail: anup.gupta@arohan.in
Customer may register his/her complaint to the RBI Ombudsman through any of the touch points mentioned below if any complaint reported to the Company has not been resolved within a period of 30 days from the date of lodging the complaint with the Company or if the customer is not satisfied with the resolution provided for complaint made by him/her:
Alternatively, customer may appeal to the Officer-in-charge, Department of Supervision, Reserve Bank of India, 5th floor 15, Netaji Subhas Road, Kolkata – 700001, Tel.: 033-22312892
Any customer who has a grievance against the Company on any one or more of the grounds mentioned in Clause 9 of the Reserve Bank - Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, 2021 for NBFCs issued by RBI on November 12, 2021 for details visit (https://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/content/pdfs /RBIOS2021_amendments05082022.pdf), may himself/herself or through their authorized representative, make a complaint to the Ombudsman as specified in Clause 11 of the Reserve Bank - Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, 2021.The details Salient Features of The RBI Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, 2021 given below in Annexure-B.
Customer may register his/her complaint on toll free number -1800 102 1080 with MFIN.
For Insurance related queries and complaints
In addition to the above, for specifically Insurance related query or grievances, a customer can either contact the Insurance Company’s Customer Care by referring to his/her details given in his/her Certificate of Insurance (COI) or can register his/her complaint at Arohan in the following manner:
Level 1: Principal Officer
If the resolution provided by the Customer Care Help Desk does not meet the expectation of the Customer or the customer has not received any response, the Customer may write to:
Principal officer
Arohan Financial Services Limited,
PTI Building, 4th Floor, DP Block, DP-9, Sector-V, Salt Lake, Kolkata – 700091, West Bengal
Email Id: po_insurance@arohan.in
The Principal Officer / customer care department shall also follow up with the Insurance company for providing speedy resolution.
Level 2: Insurance company
If the Customer is not satisfied with the reply provided by Principal Officer, then the Customer may write to the concerned Insurance company by obtaining their contact details from their website or from the Certificate of Insurance shared with the Customer by the Insurance Company in hard / soft copy form.
The Insurance Company and Arohan will mutually co-ordinate for end-to-end fair resolution of the complaint within 14 days of receiving all required information and documents.
Level 3 : Integrated Grievance Management System (IGMS)
In-case the complaint remains unresolved by the Insurance Company / Arohan at any point of time, then the Customer can:
Level 4: Insurance Ombudsman
If the Customer’s complaint still remains unresolved, the Customer can reach out to the Insurance Ombudsman.
The Customer Insights Team receives complaints from the mentioned channels. Upon receipt of the complaint and required documentation, the Customer Insight Executive registers the complaint and speaks to all relevant stakeholders, as well as checks the Loan Management System (LMS) and the Insurance Claim Trackers (if necessary) to validate the query/complaint raised by the complainant. If the executive finds the complaint to be genuine, the complainant receives the complaint number post raising the complaint with the executive. The executive shares all details, including a voice recording of the complaint call, with the respective department as per the Grievance Redressal Mechanism (GRM) escalation matrix. TAT has been defined at each level (DRI) - direct responsible individual, Level 1 & Level 2 for response, along with designation. Details are reflected in the complaint category grid. Based on the response, the Customer Insights Team calls the complainant to update them that the complaint has been resolved. Thereafter, the complaint is closed in our system. SMS confirmations, with the details of the complaint number, are sent to the customer when the complaint is raised and also when it is closed.
If any complaint cannot be closed within the TAT, then the DRI, with the approval of Escalation 1, needs to inform the GRO (bikash.gupta@arohan.in) through email for an extension of the TAT once before the TAT is over. However, the TAT days should not exceed more than 30 working days and 14 working days for insurance related issues. In the case of any complaints where external team (CIC, Cross Sell product) dependency is observed, we need to communicate the TAT provided by the external team to the customer for resolution and close the loop on the complaint. As per the Integrated Ombudsman scheme of RBI, the resolution of any complaint with the written document needs to be submitted at the RBI portal within 30 calendar days.
To ensure a better customer experience, we have re-designed our Grievance Redressal Mechanism by lowering our TAT days so that the customers can get faster resolution.
Arohan’s Customer Care cell will make outbound calls as per a pre-fixed schedule. The outbound calls will be made with one or more of the following objectives:
There is a specific Customer Grievance Committee, The Committee has been formed with the participation of each concerned department, such as Strategy, Credit, Audit, Compliance & Legal, Business and Central Operations, and is chaired by the Head of Central Operations. The Committee also includes an Internal Ombudsman (IO). The Committee periodically reviews major areas of customer grievances and measures taken to improve customer service. The Committee would also consider unresolved complaints/grievances and may offer its advice. Additionally, an auto-escalation methodology has been built into the CRM for cases not closed within 20 working days. All cases that are partially/fully rejected are routed to the Internal Ombudsman for a final decision.
At the operational level, Arohan shall ensure to prominently display the following information for the benefit of its customers at all its places of business
Summary of the customer grievance reports along with actions initiated will be reported to the Board during each quarterly meeting. The report shall contain information such as the total number of complaints received, resolved and pending, along with the reasons thereof, which will be placed before the Board for information / guidance. Top management will periodically conduct random sample checks of at least 20 calls quarterly. Senior officials will also conduct random sample checks on monthly basis (CCO & Senior leadership team). The Company will designate a day each month (the 2nd Saturday of every month) as Grievance Redressal Day at all its offices from 1 PM to 3 PM. The Branch Head will address the grievances for their respective branch.
The Grievance Redressal Policy of Arohan is approved by the Board and will be reviewed at least annually by the Board. The Customer Grievance Committee is also authorized to review and make non-material amendments to this policy. A note on all these changes should be submitted to the Board annually for their reference.
In case of any grievances arising due to the behaviour of our employees and/or any other issues, customers may complain using the following channels:
Level 1: Customer Service Representative/Branch Head/Relationship Manager
Please contact Customer Service Representative/Branch Head at the branch or you can call them in the mobile numbers provided in the Center Attendance Register/Loan Card. Also, the complaint register is placed at the branch for customers to register their grievances.
Level 2: Customer Care Help Desk
If you are not satisfied with the response received at the branch level or if you don't receive any response from the branch in 3 working days, please call our Customer Care Help Desk to register your complaints:
Toll-Free Helpline Number: 1800 103 2375
Timings: 10:00 am - 6 pm (Monday to Friday)
WhatsApp Number: +91 76050 27711
E-mail ID: customercare@arohan.in
Level 3: Grievance Redressal Officer
If you are not satisfied with the response received from our Customer Care Help Desk or if you don’t receive any response from us as per Turn Around Time (TAT), please write to, please call or write to
Grievance Redressal Officer:
Mr. Bikash Kumar Gupta
Grievance Redressal Officer
Phone: 033-40427726
Mobile: +91-9903019085
Email: gro@arohan.in
Timings: 10 am – 6 pm, Monday to Friday
Arohan Financial Services Limited
PTI Building, 4th Floor,
DP block, DP-9, Sector-V, Salt Lake,
Kolkata-700091
We will respond within 10 days of the Grievance Redressal Officer receiving the complaint.
You can lodge a complaint or raise a concern, without mentioning your name and personal details (Anonymous). We assure you that due investigation will be made and appropriate action will be taken to resolve the concern.
If you are not satisfied with the response received from our Grievance Redressal Officer or if you don’t receive any response from Grievance Redressal Officer within 10 working days please call or write to our Principal Nodal Officer:
Mr. Anup Kumar Gupta
Principal Nodal Officer
Phone: 033-40156040
Email: anup.gupta@arohan.in
Timings: 10 am – 6 pm, Monday to Friday
We will respond within 5 working days of the Principal Nodal Officer receiving the complaint.
If you are not satisfied with the response received from any of the above or do not receive a response within 30 days, you may write to the RBI Ombudsman through any of the touch points mentioned below:
Alternatively, you may appeal to the Officer-in-charge, Department of Supervision, Reserve Bank of India, 5th floor 15, Netaji Subhas Road, Kolkata – 700001, Tel.: 033-22312892.
MFIN Toll Free Number
RBI has integrated the existing three Ombudsman schemes of RBI namely, (i) the Banking Ombudsman Scheme, 2006; (ii) the Ombudsman Scheme for Non- Banking Financial Companies, 2018; and (iii) the Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions, 2019; into one “The Reserve Bank- Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, 2021” (the “Scheme”). The Scheme adopts ‘One Nation One Ombudsman’ approach by making the RBI Ombudsman mechanism jurisdiction neutral. Any customer aggrieved by deficiency in service (a shortcoming or an inadequacy in any financial service or such other services related thereto, which the Company is required to provide statutorily or otherwise, which may or may not result in financial loss or damage to the customer) may file a complaint in writing or otherwise under the Scheme.
The Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, 2021 is effective from November 12, 2021.
For more details, please refer to the Scheme details available on the RBI website www.rbi.org.in.The copy of the Scheme is also available in our branches, which will be provided to customers upon request.
ANNEXURE - A
FORM OF COMPLAINT (TO BE LODGED) WITH THE OMBUDSMAN
[Clause 11(2) of the Scheme]
(TO BE FILLED UP BY THE COMPLAINANT)
All the fields are mandatory except wherever indicated otherwise
To
The Ombudsman
Madam/Sir,
Sub: Complaint against ........................(place of Regulated Entity's branch or office) of........................................................................ (name of the Regulated Entity)
Details of the complaint:
Name of the complainant .................................................................
Full address of the complainant ...............................................................
Pin Code ....................
Phone No. (if available) ................
Mobile Number..........................
E-mail (if available) .........................
Pin Code .........................
(Please enclose a copy of the complaint)
Yes/No (Please enclose a copy of the reminder)
Whether your complaint:
(i) |
is sub-judice/under arbitration1*1? |
Yes |
No |
(ii) |
is made through an advocate, except when the advocate is |
Yes |
No |
(iii) |
has already been dealt with or is under process on the same |
Yes |
No |
(iv) |
is in the nature of general complaint/s against Management |
Yes |
No |
(v) |
is on account of a dispute between Regulated Entities? |
Yes |
No |
(vi) |
involves employer-employee relationship? |
Yes |
No |
(If space is not sufficient, please enclose a separate sheet)
(if yes, please enclose a copy of the reply)
____________________________________
1*1 Complaint is sub-judice/under arbitration if the complaint in respect of the same cause of action is already pending/dealt with on merits by any Court, Tribunal or Arbitrator or any other Authority, whether individually or jointly.
(Please enclose a copy of documentary proof, if any, in support of your claim)
Declaration
Yours faithfully
(Signature of the Complainant / Authorised Representative)
AUTHORISATION
If the complainant wants to authorise a representative to appear and make submission on her/his behalf before the Ombudsman, the following declaration should be submitted:
I/We ................. hereby nominate Shri/Smt...................................................... as my/our authorised representative whose contact details are as below:
Full Address .................................................................
Pin Code ..................................
Phone No: .................................
Mobile Number..........................
E-mail ......................................
(Signature of the Complainant)