Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Sanjay Malhotra has pulled up banks and financial institutions for masking customer complaints by terming them as 'requests, queries and disputes'.

Malhotra said this is a 'gross violation' of RBI norms, and called upon banks to improve in the area of KYC, digital frauds, mis-selling and aggressive recovery practices.

The governor asked banks to prioritise customer service to maintain consumer trust and address growing grievances. He was delivering a speech on transforming grievance redressal at the annual conference of the banking Ombudsmen on Monday.

In his speech, the governor said that the misclassification of customer comp laints has left many grievances unaddressed.