(Co-authored with Vimal Balasubramanium, Aishwarya Gawali, Nancy Gupta and Srishti Sharma)
Background
Additionally, there is
evidence to suggest that structural and individual issues can discourage women from resolving disputes with financial service providers when they arise.
We present evidence from a unique large-scale
survey of consumer’s grievances and redress experiences with using various financial products. The distinctive aspect of this survey is that the sample consists of an equal proportion of men and women. This was done to appropriately capture the financial lives of women, particularly their complaining behaviour. We use the top three most used products in our sample, namely banking deposits, ATM/Debit cards and Life Insurance and present the differences in usage, grievance, complaining, redress and impact of grievances.
Usage of products and incidence of grievances
As we sampled an equal proportion of men and women in our survey, it is useful to see how many users of the selected financial products are men and how many are women. Table 1 presents the number of men and women who use a particular product, and also the number of men and women who have faced a grievance while using that product.
In Table 1, we see that out of the 17407 users of banking deposits, a roughly equal proportion of men and women use the product. In the case of ATM/Debit cards, we see that 8625 users, almost 60% are men and 40% are women. For life insurance, this proportion stands at 55% for men and 45% for women. From this, it follows that men account for a higher number of grievances.
|
Product
|
Usage
|
Grievance
|
|
Men
|
Women
|
Men
|
Women
|
|
Banking deposits
|
9007
|
8400
|
1129
|
983
|
|
ATM/Debit Cards
|
4922
|
3703
|
737
|
542
|
|
Life Insurance
|
1731
|
1423
|
85
|
69
|
Interestingly, when we examine what proportion of male users faced a grievance as against female users, we see that an almost equal proportion of male and female users reported having faced a grievance in the case of all products.
Do men and women face different kinds of problems?
Figure 1, presents the different categories of grievances for both men and women. The first panel shows issues faced while using banking deposits, the second one is for ATM/Debit Cards and the last panel represents issues faced by life insurance users.
For banking deposits, transaction related issues include deductions or charges without information, failures or delays in transactions, accounts closed without notice etc. Service related issues include difficulty in opening a bank account, inefficient procedures/service delivery (such as difficulties in accessing bank account), bad behaviour of staff, passbook related (not issuing passbook) etc.
For ATM cards, transaction related grievances include problems such as amount being debited but money not withdrawn from the machine, unnecessary charges being levied etc. Infrastructure and service delivery related issues include ATM cards stuck in machines, lack of cash in ATM, ATM closed/non functional etc.
For insurance, process related issues include problems such as not getting refunds and dues on time after policy closure, instalment related issues,
processing delays and not receiving appropriate documents.
Figure 1: Nature of grievances for banking deposits, ATM/ Debit Cards and Life Insurance
While for banking deposits and ATM/Debit Card, men and women are affected equally by all different kinds of problems, we note that in the case of life insurance, despite having fewer users and grievances, women have more fraud grievances than men, and also face more claim related grievances.
Complaining behaviour
There is
evidence from other developing countries that women are less likely to report a grievance. In our survey too, we see that women lodge fewer complaints compared to men. The order of magnitude, however, is smaller, perhaps because we are sampling an equal proportion of men and women. There is also some product wise heterogeneity in our results which we explore below.
|
Product
|
Usage (N)
|
Grievance (N)
|
Complained (N)
|
Resolved (N)
|
Escalated (N)
|
Resolved upon escalation (N)
|
|
|
M
|
W
|
M
|
W
|
M
|
W
|
M
|
W
|
M
|
W
|
M
|
W
|
|
Banking
deposits
|
9007
|
8400
|
1129
|
983
|
595
|
469
|
370
|
282
|
56
|
32
|
28
|
19
|
|
ATM/
Debit Card
|
4922
|
3703
|
737
|
542
|
284
|
237
|
220
|
184
|
27
|
10
|
16
|
4
|
|
Life Insurance
|
1731
|
1423
|
85
|
69
|
59
|
46
|
44
|
35
|
0
|
4
|
0
|
3
|
In the case of banking deposits, 53% of men with grievances complained, and 47% of women with grievances complained. Resolution rates for men and women are also similar. 24% of men's unresolved complaints are escalated as against 17% of women's. Interestingly, resolution after escalation is almost 10% higher for women than men.
For ATM Cards and deposits, 44% of women with grievances complain, as against 38% of men with grievances. As in the case of banking deposits, resolution rates are the same. There is a significant disparity between escalation rates, as only 18% of women's complaints are escalated as against 42% of men's. Similarly, while almost 60% of men's complaints are resolved, this number is only 40% for women.
In the life insurance category, 69% of men with grievances lodge a complaint, while 66% of women with grievances, complain. As noted for both the other products, resolution rates are the same for men and women. Interestingly, no unresolved complaints were escalated further by men, whereas women escalated 36% of their unresolved complaints. Of these, 75% were resolved.
Reasons for not complaining
Table 3 shows the number of men and women who did not complain for a particular reason, with regards to the mentioned product.
|
Product
|
Banking deposits
|
ATM/Debit Card
|
Life Insurance
|
|
Reason/Gender
|
M
|
W
|
M
|
W
|
M
|
W
|
|
Costly and complex process
|
102
|
80
|
168
|
116
|
7
|
2
|
|
Did not know validity of complaint
|
42
|
46
|
45
|
26
|
-
|
-
|
|
Do not know/wish to answer
|
38
|
53
|
14
|
11
|
1
|
1
|
|
Fear of retribution
|
22
|
16
|
10
|
7
|
1
|
4
|
|
Resolution unlikely
|
86
|
102
|
78
|
42
|
2
|
8
|
|
Unknown process
|
213
|
195
|
112
|
86
|
6
|
5
|
|
Was advised not to by friends and family
|
12
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
3
|
0
|
In the case of banking deposits, more women don't complain because they don't know the validity of their complaint, compared to men. Similarly, more women don't complain because they believe resolution is unlikely, compared to men. In the case of life insurance, more women don't complain due to fear of retribution. Additionally, more women don't complain because they believe that resolution is not likely, when compared to men.
Impact of grievance on usage
In our survey, we ask all those respondents who faced a grievance, what the impact of this grievance was on their usage of the product. This impact is captured as an action that consumer may take after having faced a grievance. This action could be exhibiting switching behaviour, reducing or stopping use of the products, making no change or increasing use of the product.
Figure 2 shows the number of men and women who faced a particular kind of impact as a result of the grievance for the three selected products. The first panel presents information about banking deposits, the second about ATM/Debit Cards and the third for Life Insurance.
Figure 2: Impact of grievances on consumer's usage, for banking deposits, ATM/ Debit Cards and Life Insurance
Interestingly, when we examine the impact that a grievance has had on the consumer's usage of the product, we see very marginal differences between men and women.In the case of banking deposits, a marginally higher number of women warn their friends and family about the product compared to men.
Conclusion
We are able to see some interesting and surprising patterns in our survey, starting with the fact that the sample has an almost equal proportion of male and female users. Next we see that the incidence of grievance is almost the same for men and women. The nature of grievances, reasons for not complaining are also more or less similar.
These results suggest that using a product is an equaliser, because the subsequent engagement with the grievance redress system is almost the same for men and women, once they have entered the financial system. This highlights the importance of participation in financial markets, which continues to be a challenge for women.
Vimal Balasubramaniam is a researcher at Queen Mary University, London. Aishwarya Gawali and Nancy Gupta are researchers at NIPFP. Renuka Sane is a researcher at Trustbridge. Srishti Sharma is a PhD student at Texas A&M University.
The views expressed in the post are those of the authors only. No responsibility for them should be attributed to NIPFP.
