The banking system in India today has perhaps the largest outreach for delivery of financial services and is also serving as an important conduit for delivery of financial services. The Reserve Bank of India set up the Bank Ombudsman in year 1995 to provide an expeditious and inexpensive forum to bank customers for resolution of their complaints relating to deficiency in banking services. The Ombudsman Scheme is a system of expeditious and inexpensive resolution to customer complaints. The customers who are unhappy with the services rendered by a bank or face problems while dealing with one can apply to the banking ombudsman for redressal under the RBI’s Banking Ombudsman Scheme. Banking ombudsman exploits the Redressal policy to reach out to the large number of customers which are beyond the reach of traditional Redressal systems. In this regard the paper evaluates the performance of Banking Ombudsman Scheme 2006 in terms of complaints received on Deposits, Loans, ATM Debit cards and credit cards, pension, Non observance of fair practices, total complaints and region wise complaints and in this paper we have analyzed the impact of Banking Ombudsman Scheme on service quality provided by banking institutions. For this purpose Trend analysis technique have been employed. The study indicates that the number of complaints against banking institutions has been continuously increasing under the Banking Ombudsman Scheme in regions like Patna, Kanpur Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati, Mumbai and continuously decreasing in regions like Ahmedabad Chandigarh, Chennai, Jaipur, Kolkata and New Delh. The total complaints against foreign banks have been decreasing while the total complaints against private sector banks have been increasing. No doubt, the scheme will gain more popularity in future and its impacts on service quality by banks will be positive.

Banking Performance, Banking Ombudsman, Customer Complaints, Grievances