Bank Of Baroda: Crores of customers of Bank of Baroda customers have got relief. Let us tell you in detail.
The RBI has lifted the ban on Bank of Baroda’s BOB WORLD. This will directly benefit the customers. Let us tell you that in October 2023, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stopped Bank of Baroda from adding new customers on its mobile app ‘BoB World’ citing material supervisory concerns.
RBI issued a new circular – New customers can be added through the BOB WORLD app. RBI had banned adding new customers through BOB WORLD application.
BOB WORLD App What happened when
In March 2022, when the top management of the bank put pressure on the branch to increase the registration of ‘Bob World’ customers and asked them to increase the downloads of the app. At that time, the pressure was so high that employees would sometimes link customers’ bank accounts using their numbers to increase the download numbers of ‘Bob’s World’.
After receiving the OTP on their own mobile numbers, they completed the app registration, which increased the number of downloads. In some cases, these mobile numbers belonged to bank agents, known as Business Correspondents (BCs). They work in remote areas. However, all this was started only to increase downloads.
Once these downloads were completed, these accounts were soon unregistered, and the same numbers were used again to link the accounts of other customers. Meanwhile, a case had also come to light where a nodal officer of the regional office offered to give his and his wife’s mobile numbers to link the customer’s bank account.
This matter came to light when a retired employee wrote an email to the top management to inform about the increasing pressure on the employees to increase downloads. He had mentioned in it how this pressure has created a fraud-like situation, which ultimately proved to be true.
During this time, those who were illegally linked to the bank accounts of other customers withdrew money from those bank accounts. According to the report, a total of 362 customers lost Rs 22 lakh during this period.
After this, RBI took action and in October 2023, citing all the concerns, Bank of Baroda was banned from adding new customers on its mobile app ‘BoB World’.
On May 8, 2024, RBI lifted the ban on BOB WORLD app. Now, new customers can be added through this.
