RBI asks banks to use AI for resolving consumer complaints

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Sanjay Malhotra on Monday called on bankers to explore the integration of technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), to shore up grievance resolution, while being mindful of ethical considerations.

Ninety-five commercial banks in India received more than 10 million customer complaints in fiscal 2023-24, Malhotra said in his inaugural address at the Annual Conference of the RBI Ombudsmen in Mumbai.

“With the rapidly growing customer base and expanding suite of products, this may grow if we do not get our act together,” he said.

Financial institutions can use AI to analyze large volumes of data to detect spikes in issues such as ATM failures or erroneous charges, and receive pre-emptive alerts, Malhotra said.

AI-driven chatbots and voice recognition tools can also be deployed to tide over language barriers in a linguistically diverse country like India, the RBI governor said, adding while urging financial institutions to invest in human capital to improve customer service and grievance redressal processes.