In order to strengthen the consumer protection regime, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) directed banks to enhance grievance handling mechanisms at their end. In a statement on Monday, the central bank said that the SBP is in continuous pursuit of strengthening the consumer protection regime and market conduct of the industry. Amongst other efforts, SBP is focusing on improvement in grievance handling mechanisms at banks, microfinance banks (MFBs) and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) with the aim to provide more affordable, accessible, fair, accountable, and efficient grievance redressal. For this purpose, various measures have been taken by SBP to enhance responsible complaint handling by the banks as they handle more than 97 percent of complaints related to the banking industry, in a year. Recently, the SBP conducted a detailed review of complaint handling practices at banks, primarily focusing on ‘ease of lodgment’, and ‘quick and fair disposal’ of complaints. Based on the findings of the review and the role of complaints in improvising banking services, the SBP has directed the banks to enhance the grievance handling mechanism deployed at their end. In order to make complaint lodgement at banks easier and accessible, SBP has prescribed mandatory modes of complaint lodgement to banks with a direction to ensure their availability and accessibility at all times. These modes include call centers, emails, e-forms, surface mail, fax, and complaint boxes/registers.