MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank has lifted the ban it imposed six months ago on the second-largest public sector lender, Bank of Baroda, from onboarding new customers through its mobile application citing regulatory breaches and weak security systems, the regulator lifted the ban on Wednesday, the bank said in an exchange filing Wednesday evening.
The RBI had in October 2023 ordered the bank to stop onboarding customers using its mobile app, the Bob World, citing certain material supervisory concerns observed in the manner of onboarding new customers through the app.
The bank said, “The Reserve Bank, vide a letter dated May 8, conveyed to us its decision to lift the restrictions on Bob World with immediate effect. As such the bank is free to onboard customers via this app in accordance with the applicable guidelines and extant regulations.” Accordingly, the statement further said, the bank will now resume onboarding new customers through the application. The RBI action came after it was reportedly found that last July some BoB officials linked bank accounts to unrelated mobile numbers to achieve their sales onboarding targets, mainly in the Bhopal zone. The bank launched app towards late 2021 and the management reported set stiff target for its sales staff.
Later reports said bank employees in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Jharkhand also adopted the same modus operandi adopted by the Bhopal zone employees to achieve the targets. Though the bank has officially denied any wrongdoings saying any unauthenticated or non-customer mobile numbers for boosting app registrations were not permitted.
When news came out it issued a statement denying any wrongdoings saying using unauthenticated, stranger’s or non-customer mobile numbers for boosting app registrations is not factually correct as one mobile number can be counted with only one mobile app at any point in time. It targets only active users who can get onboarded through the system controls in place, rather than mobile app downloads or registrations.
However, later when the RBI imposed the curbs, it claimed it has adopted corrective measures to address the concerns highlighted by regulator.
To resume onboarding customers via application
BoB will now resume onboarding new customers via the application. The RBI action came after it was reportedly found that last July some officials linked bank accounts to unrelated mobile numbers to achieve their onboarding targets, mainly in Bhopal zone. It launched app in 2021 and the management reported set stiff target for its sales staff.