RBI asks HDFC bank to halt issue of new credits cards, and all other new digital activities

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked HDFC Bank to temporarily halt sourcing new credit cards and stop the launch of its digital business-generating activities planned under Digital 2.0 and other proposed business generating IT applications. The RBI issued the order dated December 2, 2020, to HDFC Bank.The RBI action comes after the central bank on November 23 sought an explanation from HDFC Bank after its digital services were disrupted from the evening of November 21 till November 22 morning - for over 12 hours. The order also states that HDFC Bank’s board must examine the lapses and fix accountability.

“The above measures shall be considered for lifting (the restrictions) upon satisfactory compliance with the major critical observations as identified by the RBI,” it added. In fact, the RBI order takes into account incidents of outage in HDFC Bank’s internet banking, mobile banking and payment utility services over the past two years. HDFC Bank had attributed the outage on November 21 to a power failure in the bank’s primary data centre. HDFC bank said the above measures shall be considered for lifting upon satisfactory compliance with the major critical observations as identified by the RBI. HDFC Bank said "over the last two years, it has taken several measures to fortify its IT systems and will continue to work swiftly to close out the balance and would continue to engage with the regulator in this regard.  "The bank has been taking conscious, concrete steps to remedy the recent outages on its digital banking channels and assures its customers that it expects the current supervisory actions will have no impact on its existing credit cards, digital banking channels and existing operations. The bank believes that these measures will not materially impact its overall business," it added.