Banking and finance guides

Reviewed on: 2026-08-25.

This category is about borrowing and investing. It covers loans and EMIs, credit reports and credit scores, and investment holdings such as shares and broker accounts. If your problem is with the bank account itself, see banking and money. If a payment failed or was wrongly debited, see banking, UPI and payment failures.

Three regulators matter here, and each has a door that only opens if you knocked at the one before it. For loans, BNPL dues and lender conduct, the route runs from the lender's own grievance cell to the RBI Integrated Ombudsman at cms.rbi.org.in — but the ombudsman expects you to have complained to the lender first and given it 30 days. For wrong entries on your credit report, you raise a dispute with the credit bureau — CIBIL, Equifax, Experian and CRIF are the four RBI-licensed bureaus, and each owes you a free report once a year — and the bureau and the lender then work the correction between them. For broker ledgers, demat holdings and corporate actions like bonus shares, the route is the broker, then the exchange, then SEBI SCORES.

• Sanction letter and repayment schedule — the contract the lender must honour, with the interest reset and foreclosure terms.
• Bank and loan account statements — the money trail; export them, do not screenshot them.
• Closure letter or NOC — proof the loan ended, which is what stops a “settled” flag from haunting your credit report for years.
• Broker ledger and contract notes — for every trade and charge you dispute.

One habit shortens every fight in this category: complain in writing, keep the complaint number, and wait out the prescribed window before escalating. An ombudsman complaint filed the same day as the lender complaint comes back rejected on maintainability, not on merit.

Private banks, NBFCs, fintech lenders and brokers are not public authorities, so you cannot file RTI against them directly. Public sector banks are different — they answer RTI applications directly, which makes them the workable route for old records, charge sheets and internal notes on your own account. And for every regulated entity, you can use RTI with RBI and SEBI to ask what action was taken on the complaint you already filed — that question, “please provide the action taken report on my complaint number so-and-so”, is the one that moves a file off a desk.

The RBI Integrated Ombudsman rejects complaints filed before the lender had its chance. So complain to the lender in writing, record the date, and calendar day 31. If the lender's reply is silent, evasive or a refusal, the ombudsman complaint that follows is complete: attach your original complaint, the dates, and the reply if any. The same discipline runs through this category — bureau disputes, SCORES complaints and bank escalations all reward the writer who can show a dated chain and punish the caller who cannot.

Both stay on your credit report for years, but “settled” means you paid less than owed — every lender reads it that way. Push for a “closed” status with an NOC; the difference follows you into every future rate you are quoted.

The bureau forwards your dispute to the lender, and the lender must confirm or correct. Chase the lender as much as the bureau, and keep the dispute reference — if the correction slips past the committed window, that reference is your escalation to the RBI ombudsman.

From a public sector bank, yes — they are public authorities. From a private bank or NBFC, no; the route there is a written request under the RBI's customer service rules, and complaint to the ombudsman if it is ignored.

Nothing. Both the RBI Integrated Ombudsman and the insurance ombudsman are free to the complainant, as is a SEBI SCORES complaint. The only real price is the discipline of the paper trail — which is why the guides here start with documents, not with complaint links.

• BNPL account showing unknown dues and hurting your credit report
• Car loan NOC lost after closure: getting a duplicate
• Bank auction notice on a secured loan: what the borrower can do
• FD lien not released after loan or guarantee closure
• Broker ledger does not match your records
• Bonus shares not reflected in your demat account

Browse all practical guides for problems outside this category, and see The RTI Playbook for the records-first method that underpins every guide here.