Consumer Events & Programmes

‘Credit cards’ play a vital role in today’s life and it has been a landmark innovation in consumer finance. Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, as the nodal department to find out ways and means for removing the hurdles faced by Consumers by the unethical practices of service providers and to create awareness among consumers against exploitation of their rights in any manner, is conducting periodical meetings with consumer organisations along with service providers. in order to discuss the issue in detail and to find out ways and means to prevent consumers from unethical trade practices a seminar captioned as "Credit Cards - Scenario Today- Boon or Bane for Consumers" was conducted by Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department at Chennai on 29.08.07 with Officials dealing consumer grievances from all service providers ( Banks ) of credit card services participated with Police Department, Banking Ombudsman, Reserve Bank of India, Chennai along with members of voluntary consumer organisations and general public.

This Seminar was conducted as three sessions. After these sessions, Joint Commissioner of Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection summarised the recommendations that have to be forwarded to the RBI which are as follows:

• A separate ‘Credit Bureau’ to be formed

• All banks to adhere to RBI guidelines

• Specific address for communication to be provided for consumer grievance redressal or for making any complaints instead of post box number and all transactions regarding credit cards including cancellation of cards have to be acknowledged by responsible officials

• While issuing of cards clear mentioning of the Most Important Terms and Conditions in local language have to be provided in readable font size

• credit period to be streamlined so as to enable the consumers to avail uniform credit period from the date of purchase/service

• Consumer grievances redressal mechanism to be mentioned clearly indicating person to be contacted, address, phone number, e.mail id,etc. and functioning of these grievances will be published.

• unsolicited marketing calls inviting to avail cards or loans to be avoided

• Specific and uniform guidelines to be framed towards billing, revolving credit, rate of interest, charges for late payment, etc. by RBI

The above recommendations have been sent to Banking Ombudsman for necessary action.