Kotak Mahindra Bank Addresses RBI Concerns: CEO

Mumbai, Apr 25 (PTI) A day after the severe action by the RBI, Kotak Mahindra Bank's chief executive and managing director Ashok Vaswani on Thursday said the lender is "actively working" to address the concerns raised by the regulator.

The private sector lender is in constant communication with the RBI to resolve any issues, he said in a statement posted on Kotak Mahindra Bank's social media handles.

On Wednesday, the Reserve Bank of India barred Kotak Mahindra Bank from onboarding any new customers through its online and mobile banking channels and also prohibited it from issuing fresh credit cards.

The action was taken for repeated non-compliance with IT norms and after the discovery of "serious deficiencies" in Kotak Mahindra Bank's IT risk management.

In the communication addressed to customers, Vaswani, who assumed office in January this year, said it has "temporarily paused" the issuance of new credit cards and added that its operations continue uninterrupted for all the existing customers.

"We are actively working to address the concerns raised and are in constant communication with the regulator to resolve any issues promptly," he said.

Immediately after the RBI action, the bank had on Wednesday said it has taken measures for the adoption of new technologies to strengthen its IT systems and will continue to work with the apex bank to swiftly resolve balance issues at the earliest.

The Kotak Mahindra Bank scrip closed 10.85 per cent down at Rs 1,643 apiece on the BSE on Thursday against gains of 0.66 per cent on the benchmark.