Canara Bank branch directed to pay compensation for dishonoring debit card

A district consumer forum directed the Arumbakkam branch of Canara Bank to pay the compensation for wrongly dishonoring the ATM-cum-debit card of a customer. The bank has been asked to pay Rs 50,000 compensation to a customer for deficiency in service.

Arumbakkam branch of Canara Bank an account holder had filed the complaint in which he stated about the incident. The incident occurred on May 20, 2005 when she went to Mumbai. She wanted to do payment of her purchases through her debit card as she had Rs 68,605 in her account, but her card displayed zero balance in the account, was dishonored.

Due to this incident she had to face mental agony therefore she moved the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Chennai (South), seeking compensation.

In its defense, the bank said the complainant might have not used the card properly and hence it was dishonored. However, the bank had apologized to the complainant for the embarrassment caused and argued that there was no deficiency in service on its part.

But the forum refused to accept this argument. On examination of the case, the forum found, "The contention of the bank is not acceptable as in its reply to the complainant; the bank had categorically admitted that due to technical reasons the card did not work at that particular time. The bank did not file any documents to disprove the case of the complainant.''

Maintaining the bank responsible for deficiency in service, the forum asked it to pay Rs 50,000 compensation along with Rs 3,000 as case expenditure to the complainant within six weeks time.

Canara Bank expands overseas branch office network

Canara Bank, Bangalore based proposes to increase its network of overseas branch offices. Bank will be shortly opening ten overseas branches and offices. Recently bank has sought the permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for opening branches in Johannesburg, Frankfurt, Muscat, Manama, Qatar, Leicester, New York, Sao Paulo, Dar-er-Salam and Tokyo.

A bank official notified that these 10 news branches are out of those 21 international financial centers which have been identified for global expansion in the medium term.

During the quarter ended December 31, 2008 Canara Bank had observed increase in business and profits with the net profit increased by 53 per cent to Rs 702 crore as compared to the same quarter in the previous year.

Technical Analyst, E Mathew said that Canara Bank can slip to Rs 155-160 which is next major support for the stock.

On Friday the scrip of Canara Bank had closed at Rs 174, down 15% compared to previous close of Rs 204.