##ries or corporates, and the common person. we, in the rbi, whenever considering customer service, tend to focus on the common person, particularly in the context of our country. when i joined the indian administrative service ( ias ) in 1964, a professor at the academy imparting training to us said this : “ you are among the best and the brightest of the youth in the country. you have chosen to join ias and your basic duty is to serve the public. please remember that public are those who are not in the ias ”. that is one of the lessons worth remembering. appreciation i want to place on record my deep appreciation of the enormous cooperation extended by all banks and in particular, indian banks ’ association in bringing to fruition this important institutional venture, under the overall guidance of my colleague shri v. leeladhar. i am grateful to our finance minister, shri p. chidambaram who supported and encouraged us in the rbi for pursuing this work in conjunction with revisions in the ombudsman scheme. finally, i am thankful to smt. udeshi for agreeing to chair the board and build the institution. i am also grateful to sarvashi mg bhide, mm chitale, s divakara and krishna kumar for graciously allowing themselves to be persuaded by me to work for the board, as a matter of public service, inspite of their otherwise busy schedule. in house, but spared to work on this worthy cause, are sarvashri kolarkar and baijal who will serve the common person through this forum. i have great pleasure in releasing the code of bank ’ s commitment to customers and assuring the board and the banks of continued support and understanding from the rbi in all their endeavours to discharge their mandate. thank you.

statutory regulation and self - regulation for oversight of customer service. statutory regulatory instructions are set out in letter but sometimes, may not be carried out in spirit. self - regulation may often be more effective in dealing with deficiencies in service but it has been found that in many cases, it has, by itself, not been a fully effective tool for raising standards of customer service. to build on the positive features of both the systems, the committee on procedures and performance audit on public services ( cppaps, 2004 ) felt that there was a need to benchmark the extant level of public services in the banking sector. the committee recommended that a banking codes and standards board of india ( bcsbi ) be set up to evaluate and oversee the observance of a voluntary code of conduct by the banks. consequently, the rbi and the banks decided to set up, as a collaborative effort, an autonomous body, which combines the best of self - regulation and statutory regulation. as a part of collaborative arrangements for an independent body, the rbi will fully meet the budgetary requirements for the first five years while the banks would, during this period, contribute to building the corpus of the bcsbi to enable it to eventually become a self - sustaining organisation. i am happy to know that the majority of banks in india are registered with the bcsbi, indicating their willingness to adopt the voluntary code. those banks, which adhere to the bcsbi code, would provide the rbi necessary supervisory comfort ; and i have no doubt that all the banks will join the main stream. standards of service in banks : select country experiences it may be useful to note recent developments in several countries in regard to services rendered by banks. in the u. k., the banking code of the british bankers ’ association ( bba ) sets standards of good banking practices for financial institutions to follow when they are dealing with personal or business customers in the uk. as a voluntary code, it allows competition and market forces to work to encourage higher standards of service for the benefit of the customers. the code applies to savings deposits and current accounts, card products and services, loans and overdrafts and payment services including foreign exchange. the bcsbi is, in a way, modeled after the banking code and standards board of the united kingdom – which has been promoted by the british bankers ’ association, building societies ’ association and the association for the payments and clearing services. in addition, the office of fair trading ( oft )