Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday barred state-owned Bank of Baroda from onboarding new customers on its mobile app ‘bob World’ following material supervisory concerns.
Responding to the RBI’s directions, the state-owned lender said it has already carried out corrective measures to address the concerns of the central bank, and has initiated further steps to plug any remaining gaps.
“The Reserve Bank of India has, in exercise of its power, under Section 35A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, directed Bank of Baroda to suspend, with immediate effect, any further onboarding of their customers onto the ‘bob World’ mobile application,” the central bank said in a statement.
The action, the RBI said is based on certain material supervisory concerns observed in the manner of onboarding of their customers onto this mobile application.
“Any further onboarding of customers of the bank on the ‘bob World’ application will be subject to rectification of the deficiencies observed and strengthening of the related processes by the bank to the satisfaction of RBI,” it added.
Bank of Baroda has been further directed to ensure that already onboarded ‘bob World’ customers do not face any disruption on account of this suspension.
In a filing to stock exchanges, the bank said, “We will work closely with the RBI to address their concerns at the earliest to their satisfaction”.
The lender also assured its customers that they will not face any disruption and continue to experience uninterrupted services on the mobile app.
“Further, this order does not impact any of the bank’s other digital banking channels such as netbanking, WhatsApp banking, debit cards, ATMs, etc, for servicing its existing customers as well as for onboarding of new customers,” the lender added.
The bank does not expect the RBI’s action to have a material impact on its overall business and growth plans.
In December 2020, the RBI had barred HDFC Bank from issuing new cards and launching new digital initiatives after repeated instances of technical outages, which is the market leader in the credit cards segment.
The RBI action came after the bank’s customers faced a number of incidents of outages in internet banking, mobile banking, and payment utilities over the past two years.
Following remedial action from HDFC Bank, the RBI partially lifted the ban on card issuances in August 2021. However, the ban on launching new technology initiatives continued and was lifted in 2022.
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