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Consumers in India lodged 10,107 complaints related to credit cards in the year ended 30 June, up 31.5% from 7,688 complaints related to credit cards lodged in the previous year. The complaints went to the Reserve Bank of India's Banking Ombudsman Office. Complaints related to credit cards in the most recent year represented 20% of all banking-related complaints reported to the office, the bank says in its annual report. The credit card complaints include 7,020 against India-based financial institutions and 3,087 from banks based outside the country. At least two factors have helped to increase the number of credit card complaints, Prathima Rajan, an India-based analyst for United States-based research firm Celent LLC, tells CardLine Global. First, the pool of dissatisfied credit card customers likely has grown as India's credit card base has grown to about 27.5 million from 23 million in 2007, an increase of 19.6%, she says. Additionally, some of the issuers in India have sent unsolicited cards to potential customers, and activated those cards without permission from consumers, which has resulted in complaints, Rajan says.
