Customer Protection - Limiting Liability of Customers in Unauthorised Electronic Banking Transactions - ربی - Reserve Bank of India
Customer Protection - Limiting Liability of Customers in Unauthorised Electronic Banking Transactions
RBI/2017-18/15 July 6, 2017 All Scheduled Commercial Banks (including RRBs) Dear Sir/ Madam, Customer Protection – Limiting Liability of Customers in Unauthorised Electronic Banking Transactions Please refer to our circular DBOD.Leg.BC.86/09.07.007/2001-02 dated April 8, 2002 regarding reversal of erroneous debits arising from fraudulent or other transactions. 2. With the increased thrust on financial inclusion and customer protection and considering the recent surge in customer grievances relating to unauthorised transactions resulting in debits to their accounts/ cards, the criteria for determining the customer liability in these circumstances have been reviewed. The revised directions in this regard are set out below. Strengthening of systems and procedures 3. Broadly, the electronic banking transactions can be divided into two categories:
4. The systems and procedures in banks must be designed to make customers feel safe about carrying out electronic banking transactions. To achieve this, banks must put in place:
Reporting of unauthorised transactions by customers to banks 5. Banks must ask their customers to mandatorily register for SMS alerts and wherever available register for e-mail alerts, for electronic banking transactions. The SMS alerts shall mandatorily be sent to the customers, while email alerts may be sent, wherever registered. The customers must be advised to notify their bank of any unauthorised electronic banking transaction at the earliest after the occurrence of such transaction, and informed that the longer the time taken to notify the bank, the higher will be the risk of loss to the bank/ customer. To facilitate this, banks must provide customers with 24x7 access through multiple channels (at a minimum, via website, phone banking, SMS, e-mail, IVR, a dedicated toll-free helpline, reporting to home branch, etc.) for reporting unauthorised transactions that have taken place and/ or loss or theft of payment instrument such as card, etc. Banks shall also enable customers to instantly respond by "Reply" to the SMS and e-mail alerts and the customers should not be required to search for a web page or an e-mail address to notify the objection, if any. Further, a direct link for lodging the complaints, with specific option to report unauthorised electronic transactions shall be provided by banks on home page of their website. The loss/ fraud reporting system shall also ensure that immediate response (including auto response) is sent to the customers acknowledging the complaint along with the registered complaint number. The communication systems used by banks to send alerts and receive their responses thereto must record the time and date of delivery of the message and receipt of customer’s response, if any, to them. This shall be important in determining the extent of a customer’s liability. The banks may not offer facility of electronic transactions, other than ATM cash withdrawals, to customers who do not provide mobile numbers to the bank. On receipt of report of an unauthorised transaction from the customer, banks must take immediate steps to prevent further unauthorised transactions in the account. Limited Liability of a Customer (a) Zero Liability of a Customer 6. A customer’s entitlement to zero liability shall arise where the unauthorised transaction occurs in the following events:
(b) Limited Liability of a Customer 7. A customer shall be liable for the loss occurring due to unauthorised transactions in the following cases:
Further, if the delay in reporting is beyond seven working days, the customer liability shall be determined as per the bank’s Board approved policy. Banks shall provide the details of their policy in regard to customers’ liability formulated in pursuance of these directions at the time of opening the accounts. Banks shall also display their approved policy in public domain for wider dissemination. The existing customers must also be individually informed about the bank’s policy. 8. Overall liability of the customer in third party breaches, as detailed in paragraph 6 (ii) and paragraph 7 (ii) above, where the deficiency lies neither with the bank nor with the customer but lies elsewhere in the system, is summarised in the Table 2:
The number of working days mentioned in Table 2 shall be counted as per the working schedule of the home branch of the customer excluding the date of receiving the communication. Reversal Timeline for Zero Liability/ Limited Liability of customer 9. On being notified by the customer, the bank shall credit (shadow reversal) the amount involved in the unauthorised electronic transaction to the customer’s account within 10 working days from the date of such notification by the customer (without waiting for settlement of insurance claim, if any). Banks may also at their discretion decide to waive off any customer liability in case of unauthorised electronic banking transactions even in cases of customer negligence. The credit shall be value dated to be as of the date of the unauthorised transaction. 10. Further, banks shall ensure that:
Board Approved Policy for Customer Protection 11. Taking into account the risks arising out of unauthorised debits to customer accounts owing to customer negligence/ bank negligence/ banking system frauds/ third party breaches, banks need to clearly define the rights and obligations of customers in case of unauthorised transactions in specified scenarios. Banks shall formulate/ revise their customer relations policy, with approval of their Boards, to cover aspects of customer protection, including the mechanism of creating customer awareness on the risks and responsibilities involved in electronic banking transactions and customer liability in such cases of unauthorised electronic banking transactions. The policy must be transparent, non-discriminatory and should stipulate the mechanism of compensating the customers for the unauthorised electronic banking transactions and also prescribe the timelines for effecting such compensation keeping in view the instructions contained in paragraph 10 above. The policy shall be displayed on the bank’s website along with the details of grievance handling/ escalation procedure. The instructions contained in this circular shall be incorporated in the policy. Burden of Proof 12. The burden of proving customer liability in case of unauthorised electronic banking transactions shall lie on the bank. Reporting and Monitoring Requirements 13. The banks shall put in place a suitable mechanism and structure for the reporting of the customer liability cases to the Board or one of its Committees. The reporting shall, inter alia, include volume/ number of cases and the aggregate value involved and distribution across various categories of cases viz., card present transactions, card not present transactions, internet banking, mobile banking, ATM transactions, etc. The Standing Committee on Customer Service in each bank shall periodically review the unauthorised electronic banking transactions reported by customers or otherwise, as also the action taken thereon, the functioning of the grievance redress mechanism and take appropriate measures to improve the systems and procedures. All such transactions shall be reviewed by the bank’s internal auditors. 14. The instructions contained in this circular supersede some of the instructions contained in our Master Circular DBR.No.FSD.BC.18/24.01.009/2015-16 dated July 1, 2015 on Credit Card, Debit Card and Rupee Denominated Co-branded Pre-paid Card Operations of Banks and Credit card issuing NBFCs as detailed in the Annex. Yours faithfully, (Prakash Baliarsingh) Instructions in our Master Circular on Credit Card, Debit Card and Rupee Denominated Co-branded Pre-paid Card Operations of Banks and Credit card issuing NBFCs (DBR.No.FSD.BC.18/24.01.009/2015-16 dated July 1, 2015) which stand revised in respect of Scheduled Commercial Banks
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