RBI Lifts Partial Embargo On HDFC Banks, Allows It To Issue Credit Cards

As per a source privy to the development, RBI has partially lifted the restrictions placed on the country's largest private-run lender, HDFC Bank in December last year. Thereby, allowing the financial entity to issue fresh credit cards.

Amid an array of technical glitches one after the other, RBI ordered HDFC Bank to stop the launch of its new digital banking initiatives and also at the same time freeze issuance of new credit cards until the lender fixes the concern on regular glitches. The order by the RBI was issued on December 2, 2020 given the premise of regular outages in the net banking and mobile banking system of the bank over the last 2 years. Until the ban was announced, the bank was proactively adding 1 lakh new credit card customers every month from April-November 2020.

HDFC Bank is the country's leading credit card issuing entity in the country commanding 14.8 million cards outstanding at the end of June, followed by SBI Card and ICICI Bank.

Later, the RBI deputed an external firm to check upon the entire IT infra of the HDFC Bank. In June the bank's chief information officer Ramesh Lakshminarayanan in respect of the probable timeline for the lifting of the embargo said in June this year "that the bank has completed all assessments and the matter is pending with the regulator".

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