The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday lifted the ban imposed on Bank of Baroda's ‘bob World’ mobile application, which barred it from onboarding new customers. In October 2023, the regulator had asked Bank of Baroda, India’s second largest state-owned lender after State Bank of India, to suspend any further onboarding of its customers onto the ‘bob World’ mobile application with immediate effect.
The central bank, in the exercise of its power under section 35A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, stated that the action against the lender is based on certain material supervisory concerns observed in the manner of onboarding of new customers onto this mobile application.
In a regulatory filing on Wednesday, Bank of Baroda said: "We wish to inform that the RBI, vide its letter dated 8th May 2024, conveyed to the Bank its decision to lift the above mentioned restrictions on Bob World with immediate effect, as such the bank is free to onboard customers through Bob World application in accordance with the applicable guidelines and extant laws/regulations. The Bank will now resume onboarding new customers in the Bob World application. The Bank remains committed to ensure adherence and compliance of regulatory guidelines. We request you to take note of the above pursuant to Regulation 30 of SEBI (LODR) Regulations, 2015 and upload the information on your website."
In July last year, it was reported that Bank of Baroda officials linked bank accounts to unrelated mobile numbers in order to achieve stiff onboarding targets.
The news reports stated that in March 2022 the Bank of Baroda officials from the Bhopal zone were given a target of onboarding at least 150 existing bank customers for the bank’s new app, “bob World", which was launched six months before.
It was reported that bank employees from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Jharkhand adopted the same modus operandi to achieve the target as they were struggling to get people to sign up for the app. The officers reportedly said their regional office kept tabs on them and reprimanded them for poor performance.
The bank denied the reports and said that unauthenticated or non-customer mobile numbers for boosting app registrations are factually incorrect.
The bank, on its part, said: "The point raised on 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. The Bank targets only active users who can get onboarded only through the system controls in place, rather than mobile app downloads or registrations."
Later after RBI imposed the curbs, the bank gave a clarification that it has adopted corrective measures to address the concerns highlighted by RBI, and is taking further steps to plug any remaining gaps.
Shares of Bank of Baroda closed at Rs 262.70, up by 1.35%.