Bank of Baroda (BOB) expects to file a report to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the next two weeks on the rectification of deficiencies in its BOB World app, a senior bank official told Moneycontrol on October 16. The senior BoB official said that the bank is expecting the RBI to revoke the suspension before Diwali.
The RBI had suspended onboarding of new customers to the app on October 10, citing “certain material supervisory concerns.”
According to media reports, the RBI’s concerns were related to the way BOB was onboarding new customers to the app. Specifically, the RBI was concerned that BOB was using business correspondents (BCs) to add new customers, and that these BCs were using unethical methods to boost app registrations, such as tampering with customer accounts and linking the contact details of different people.
BOB has denied these allegations, saying that unauthenticated or non-customer mobile numbers for boosting app registrations are factually incorrect. However, the bank has admitted that there were some irregularities in some areas, and is working to fix them.
In the next two weeks, BOB will submit a report to the RBI detailing the steps it has taken to rectify the deficiencies in its BOB World app. This report will include:
- A list of all the deficiencies that have been identified
- A description of the steps that have been taken to rectify each deficiency
- A plan for how BOB will prevent these deficiencies from recurring
Once the RBI has reviewed the report and is satisfied that BOB has taken adequate steps to rectify the deficiencies, it is likely to revoke the suspension on onboarding new customers to the BOB World app.
In the meantime, BOB has assured its customers that they will not face any disruption to their services on the app. Existing customers can continue to use the app as usual, and new customers can still sign up for the app, but they will have to wait until the suspension is lifted before they can start using it.
The suspension of the BOB World app is a reminder to all banks that they need to be vigilant about the way they onboard new customers. Banks need to have robust systems in place to prevent fraud and ensure that customer accounts are secure.
