Bank of Baroda suspends officials linked to ‘bob World’ manipulation case

New Delhi: Bank of Baroda, India’s second-largest public sector bank has suspended some officials as high as assistant general managers in connection with the alleged tampering of customer accounts with the intention to inflate registrations on its mobile app ‘bob World’.

The suspension comes days after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred the state-owned bank from onboarding fresh customers on its mobile application.

“Bank of Baroda should suspend, with immediate effect, any further onboarding of customers onto the BOB World mobile application. This action is based on certain material supervisory concerns observed in the manner of onboarding customers onto this mobile application,” the central bank said in a press release on October 10.

In December 2020, the RBI had barred HDFC Bank from issuing new cards and launching new digital initiatives after repeated instances of technological outages at the lender, which is the market leader in the credit cards segment.

The action against HDFC Bank was followed by a ban on new card issuances by Mastercard and American Express due to their failure to adhere to data localisation rules.

Following remedial action from HDFC Bank, the regulator partially lifted the ban on card issuances in August 2021. However, the ban on launching new technology initiatives continued and was fully lifted in 2022.

With inputs from PTI