HDFC Bank outage: Working on war footing; customers can continue to transact without concern, says MD & CEO Sashi Jagdishan

After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) banned HDFC Bank from launching digital businesses or adding new credit card customers after its digital payment services were hit by a power failure last month, its Managing Director & CEO, Sashi Jagdishan, issued a statement.  RBI has asked the bank`s board to examine the lapses and fix accountability, HDFC Bank had said in the morning in a stock exchange filing. HDFC Bank is India's largest private lender.

First of all, Sashi Jagdishan addressed the concerns of the bank's customers and said that they need not worry at all. He said, “We take this opportunity to assure our existing customers that there is no reason to worry. You can continue to transact with the Bank without any concern.”

He added, “We had two outages, one in November 2018 and second one in December 2019. Unexpectedly another incident happened on November 21, 2020 and the primary reason for the same is the power outage in our Primary Data Centre. We are working on war footing to strengthen this area also now”.

The RBI action came after the central bank on November 23 sought an explanation from HDFC Bank after its digital services were disrupted for 12 hours—from November 21 evening till November 22 morning.

RBI order stated that HDFC Bank’s board must examine the lapses and fix accountability. “The above measures shall be considered for lifting (the restrictions) upon satisfactory compliance with the major critical observations as identified by the RBI,” a statement from HDFC Bank said.
The central bank would consider lifting the curbs only on "satisfactory compliance with the major critical observations" it had made.

Read full letter below by Sashi Jagdishan:

Dear Customers,

Many of you may have read / heard about the RBI order asking us to temporarily stop any new digital banking launches and sourcing of new credit card customers. We will comply with the regulator's requirements.
We take this opportunity to assure our existing customers that there is no reason to worry. You can continue to transact with the Bank without any concern.
We realize that as our valued customer, you expect us to maintain a very high standard of service quality and experience. And sometimes, we have not been able to live up to your expectations. For that, please accept our sincere apologies.
We had two outages, one in Nov 2018 and second one in Dec 2019. We have taken help of external expertise, understood what needs to be done further and have substantially implemented the inputs to strengthen our IT infrastructure and systems. Unexpectedly another incident happened on Nov 21,2020 and the primary reason for the same is the power outage in our Primary Data Centre. We are working on war footing to strengthen this area also now.
Some of our strategic digital initiatives to improve the front end digital experience, improve digital origination, straight through processing, next generation of mobile and internet banking, APIs based banking on the edge etc would now be readied and launched post the approval and clearance from regulator.
We will work with the experts and the regulator to fortify the identified areas for improvement. Internally, we are looking at this as an opportunity to further improve ourselves and emerge stronger.
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It is our commitment to you that we will leave no stone unturned in our quest to ensure a smooth experience for you all across our digital channels. We shall keep striving to further reinforce the trust you have reposed on us.
Thank you for your patience.
Regards,
Sashi Jagdishan
MD & CEO