Banking and money guides

Money problems with a bank rarely start as disputes; they start as silence. A debit that stops working, a closure that never completes, a nominee claim that sits “under process”. The guides in this category exist because each silence has a specific fix, and using the wrong one costs months.

Three clusters, each with its own logic:

• Freezes and liens — the account exists, the money exists, and you cannot touch it. The reason decides the remedy: a KYC freeze ends with documents, a cybercrime lien ends with the complaining authority, a court lien ends with the court. The first step is always the same: get the freeze reason and the ordering authority in writing from the branch. No branch voluntarily names the authority; every branch will hand it over once the request is documentary rather than conversational.
• Closure and conversion — the bank that will not close an account, keeps charging for it, refuses a premature FD break, or converts your account into a product you never asked for. These are service failures with regulatory timelines, and the complaints write themselves once the dates are on paper.
• Succession — nominee claims delayed, survivorship refused on joint accounts, lockers sealed after a death. RBI norms set timelines for settling deceased claims, and the guides quote them. The death certificate, the nominee's identity and the bank's own rulebook decide these; grief should not have to argue with a branch.

• Branch — give it one written chance with a dated acknowledgement.
• Nodal officer — every bank publishes one; escalate with the branch's silence attached.
• RBI Integrated Ombudsman at cms.rbi.org.in — after thirty days from your first complaint to the bank, or on a rejection. The Ombudsman's orders are binding machinery, not advice.
• RTI — works against public sector banks and against RBI, not against private banks. Use it to pull the file: the lien instruction, the KYC escalation trail, the claim-processing record.

• Account frozen over a fraud-linked payment
• Account frozen after rent or business payment from a flagged account
• Debit freeze from a cybercrime complaint: lien removal
• KYC freeze continues after submitting documents
• Bank refuses to share the lien order or cyber complaint details
• Bank refuses account closure and keeps deducting charges
• Bank refuses premature FD closure
• Account converted to another product without consent
• Account wrongly converted to a salary account
• Nominee claim on a deceased account delayed
• Bank refuses survivorship claim on a joint account
• Locker access delayed after the locker holder's death

• Loans, EMIs, credit reports and investments sit in banking and finance.
• Failed transfers and wrong debits sit in banking, UPI and payment failures.
• Browse all practical guides for problems outside this category.

If a lien traces to a cybercrime complaint, the defreeze flows from the authority that asked for it — but the bank must still give you that instruction in writing. The guide on lien orders covers exactly this refusal.

Not usefully — the Ombudsman wants to see the bank's own failure first. Complain to the bank, keep the acknowledgement, count thirty days, then file at cms.rbi.org.in with the trail attached.

Only indirectly — private banks are not public authorities. But the police, the cybercrime portal and RBI itself are, and each holds part of the record. The guides name which authority holds what.

• The RTI Playbook book — drafting, appeals and deadlines in one place.
• RTI fees by state — before you file.

Last reviewed: 26 August 2026.