Mumbai, Feb 8 (IANS): In a move to strengthen the customer grievance redressal mechanism for Non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday announced it would be setting up an ombudsman for NBFCs.

Referring to the successful working of the banking ombudsman, RBI Deputy Governor B.P. Kanungo told reporters here following central bank's last monetary policy review of 2017-18 that the "Ombudsman Scheme will be operationalised by the end of this month."

"The banking ombudsman scheme has been working well and has been accepted as a preferred mode of customer grievance redressal by public at large, which is cost free and expeditious.

"It was found that since in the NBFCs complaints were increasing, and there is no such redressal mechanism, it has been decided that we will have a scheme for the non-banking financial sector also," he said.

The ombudsman will exercise jurisdiction over the companies it in a phased manner, starting with deposit taking NBFCs, and at a later stage will include all non-banking finance companies which have an asset size of Rs 100 crore and above with customer interface.

The banking ombudsman, which is operational from 1995, is a quasi-judicial authority that works to resolve customer complaints relating to certain services provided by banks.