Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. restored services late on Monday after difficulties with its computer servers saw customers complain about problems with cash withdrawals and digital transactions.
Kotak’s technical servers were “experiencing intermittent slowness” at the start of the week, but by late Monday evening normalcy had been restored, a bank spokesperson said. The lender’s shares were down 1.1 per cent in early Tuesday trading.
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The disruption, nevertheless, drove customers at India’s fourth most valuable bank to social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, to complain about their challenges on Sunday and Monday. The services impacted included cash withdrawals from its automated teller machines and bank branches, and customers were unable to make payments.
Kotak has been pushing into technology development to enhance customer experience. Almost 98 per cent of the transaction volume in its savings accounts were by digital or non-branch methods, according to its most recent investor presentation for the third quarter ended December 31. The bank sold 95 per cent of new personal loans by volume and 99 per cent of new credit cards digitally in the same period.
India’s digital payments are expected to rise to 600 trillion rupees in the next five years. But local lenders’ ambitions to expand their digital reach and capture a larger share of the market are often let down by technical glitches, which attract the regulator’s ire. HDFC Bank, the nation’s most valuable, faced similar challenges and was ordered to curb some of its digital and credit card operations following a series of digital outages in 2020.
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