The 30-Day Rule for Financial Grievance Redressal

A consistent pattern runs across India's major financial-sector grievance mechanisms: SEBI's SCORES, RBI's Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, and IRDAI's Insurance Ombudsman all require the complainant to first approach the entity itself (the broker, bank, or insurer) directly, and generally permit escalation to the regulator only after roughly 30 days pass without resolution, or immediately if the response received is clearly unsatisfactory. This exists to give the entity a genuine first opportunity to fix its own mistake, while still guaranteeing a free, independent escalation path if it doesn't. Practically, this means the single most useful first step in any financial-services dispute is a clear, dated, written complaint to the entity itself - not just a phone call - since that written record is exactly what starts the 30-day clock and becomes the paper trail a regulator's ombudsman will ask to see.