Complaints of low-income MFI clients must be resolved at the earliest

Ramesh S Arunachalam

If complaints of low-income MFI clients are resolved at the earliest, it would help avoid another crisis, as was seen in 2010

During the peak of the crisis, I remember Suresh Gurumani, the then CEO of SKS Micro-Finance, responded to my post in the micro-finance practice a Yahoo discussion group by saying that one of the most important tasks that he had accomplished at SKS (when has was there), was the establishment of toll-free number where low-income consumers could file their complaints. While I am not sure how the initiative has worked on the ground, it is imperative to follow-up on the idea for several reasons given below and it would be great if the proposed micro-finance bill explicitly brings in the following aspects—concerning complaints and consumer protection mechanisms—as part of the overall regulatory and operational architecture for micro-finance in India.

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