HDFC Bank Experiences Net Banking Snags Day After RBI Curbs
HDFC Bank said online UPI payments were down for 30 minutes, though users spoke of being locked out from some services for longer.
(Bloomberg) -- HDFC Bank Ltd.’s internet banking services for some users went down a day after the regulator penalized the second-largest Indian lender for repeated technical glitches.
The bank said online payments via the Unified Payments Interface were down for 30 minutes on Friday, though customers tweeted of being locked out from some services of net banking for several hours during the day. Separately, State Bank of India, the nation’s biggest lender by assets, also reported glitches at its online platform.
“There was a 30 minute disruption on UPI which has been resolved,” an HDFC Bank representative said over the phone. “There are no problems with net banking barring may be some occasional ones.”
The Reserve Bank of India in a rare move barred the nation’s most valuable bank from launching new digital products after the lender’s online transactions suffered outages three times in the last two years.
Earlier in the day, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das urged financial institutions to step up their technology spends and ensure public confidence in India’s digital banking transactions, which have grown to a record amid the pandemic as people moved online.
Elaborating on the RBI’s stringent move, Das said that HDFC Bank has “overwhelming presence in the digital payment segment, in the internet banking segment” and the central bank wanted the lender to correct its “deficiencies” before expanding its offerings.
State Bank of India suffered an outage for the second consecutive day on its digital app, called YONO.
“We still have technical issues with YONO,” said SBI Managing Director C.S. Setty. “We are working on it.”
Das said the RBI is looking into SBI’s disruption as well.
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