New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released a new set of guidelines Thursday regarding credit card and debit card issuance and operations. The directions referred as Reserve Bank of India (Credit Card and Debit Card – Issuance and Conduct) Directions, 2022, will be effective from July 01, 2022.
The provisions of these directions relating to credit cards shall apply to every scheduled bank (excluding payments banks, state co-operative banks and district central co-operative banks) and all non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) operating in India.
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Going by the directions, the card issuer will end up paying a fine to the cardholder if there is a delay in closing the credit card account.
Here’s What You Should Know about Closure of Credit Card
1) The RBI has directed that any request for closure of a credit card should have to be honoured within seven working days by the credit card-issuer, subject to payment of all dues by the cardholder.
2) If a credit card has not been used for a period of more than one year, the process to close the card shall be initiated after intimating the cardholder.
3) Also note that the cardholder has to be immediately notified about the closure through email, SMS, etc about the closure of credit card.
4) The credit card issuer has to provide multiple channels for submission of request for closure of credit card account.
5) Some of these channels include helpline, dedicated e-mail-id, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), prominently visible link on the website, internet banking, mobile-app or any other mode.
6) The card-issuer shall not insist on sending a closure request through post or any other means which may result in the delay of receipt of the request.
7) If the card issuer fails to process the closure of credit card within seven working days, it should pay penalty of Rs500 per day of delay to the customer till the closure of the account, provided there is no outstanding in the account.