"We cannot put thousands or lakhs of customers who are using digital banking into any kind of difficulty for hours together, especially when we are ourselves giving so much emphasis on digital banking. The public confidence in digital banking has to be maintained," Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Friday. Responding to questions raised during the RBI's monetary policy press conference, Das said that going forward since the entire financial landscape is going to become more IT dependent, there is a need for all banks and financial entities to invest more in their systems and technology. "If you want to remain competitive in the coming years technology is the key, robustness of your IT system is the key," he said. Rising system outages and payments issue On Thursday, HDFC Bank said that the RBI had issued an order directing the bank to temporarily stop all launches of its digital business activities, stop sourcing new credit card customers and examine lapses with regards to a number of incidents over the last two years which saw the banks’ internet banking, mobile banking, and payments channels go offline. A senior bank official told MediaNama, on the condition of anonymity, that while HDFC Bank is engaging with the regulator to ensure that their systems comply with the RBI order, all digital services continue to be available for all existing customers. Later in the day, the State Bank of India (SBI) said that its flagship mobile banking application, YONO, which had…
