Services Won’t Be Interrupted For Existing Customers: Kotak Mahindra Bank

Hours after the Reserve Bank of India prohibited Kotak Mahindra Bank from onboarding new customers online and issuing fresh credit cards, citing issues with the company’s data security.

And information technology infrastructure, the bank has said it is adopting new technologies and strengthening its IT systems. It also assured existing customers that services will continue without any disruptions and said new customers can be onboarded at its branches.

“We have received an order from the RBI which directs us to temporarily pause onboarding of new customers though our online and mobile banking channels and issuance of fresh credit cards. The Bank has taken measures for adoption of new technologies to strengthen its IT systems and will continue to work with RBI to swiftly resolve balance issues at the earliest,” Kotak Mahindra Bank said in a statement.

“We want to reassure our existing customers of uninterrupted services, including credit card, mobile and net banking. Our branches continue to welcome and onboard new customers, providing them with all the Bank’s services, apart from issuance of new credit cards,” it added.

In a release earlier on Wednesday, RBI had said “significant concerns” had come to the fore in its IT examination of Kotak Mahindra Bank last year and in 2022, and that the bank had failed to address the concerns in a “comprehensive and timely manner”.

“Serious deficiencies and non-compliances were observed in the areas of IT inventory management, patch and change management, user access management, vendor risk management, data security and data leak prevention strategy, business continuity and disaster recovery rigour and drill, etc. For two consecutive years, the bank was assessed to be deficient in its IT Risk and Information Security Governance, contrary to requirements under Regulatory guidelines,” the central bank said.