The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is looking into the frequent disruptions in service suffered by users of the YONO (You Only Need One) app and other mobile banking services offered by the State Bank of India (SBI).

"We are looking into this issue. There is a need for banks and financial institutions to invest more in their IT systems," RBI governor Shaktikanta Das told reporters at a post-policy press conference.

"We are constantly engaged with the management of financial institutions where there is need to improve their IT systems," the RBI chief added.

A senior SBI official clarified that the outages were not due to inadequate infrastructure but technical glitches, and that they were being taken care of by the bank's IT service provider IBM.

The bank's mobile banking services were down for the third time in a month last week, and a number of customers took to social to complain, forcing SBI to respond with a tweet.

The bank stated that its mobile banking application YONO was down due to a "system outage" and that it was fixing the app. "We request our esteemed customers to bear with us as we work towards restoring YONO SBI app to provide for an uninterrupted banking experience," SBI said in a tweet.

On 2 December, RBI had asked HDFC to temporarily halt all launches of its digital business generating activities under ‘Digital 2.0', along with sourcing new credit card customers.

RBI had also directed HDFC Bank's board to examine these lapses and fix accountability. The order came after the private sector lender suffered its third big outage within two years.

Meanwhile, rating agency Moody's Investors Service said on Monday that the RBI's directive against HDFC Bank "is credit negative for the lender" even as the bank is increasingly relying on digital channels to source and service its customers

"The recurring outages also risk hurting the bank's brand perception among a growing and increasingly digitally savvy customer base, and increases the potential that clients switch to other banks, which would lead to a reduction in revenue and low-cost retail funding," Moody's said.

"We do not expect the regulator's action to materially affect the bank's existing business and financial profile," it added.

However, Moody's pointed out that the RBI's directive will delay the launch of HDFC Bank's Digital 2.0 initiative, under which the bank aims to consolidate all its customers' digital transactions, including payments, savings, investments, shopping, trade, insurance and advisory services, into one platform.