The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has lifted the more than nine-month old ban on Kotak Mahindra Bank, allowing it to issue new credit cards and onboard new customers through online and mobile banking channels.

The RBI had imposed the business restrictions on the bank on 24 April 2024, after finding deficiencies and non-compliances in the private lender’s information technology (IT) inventory management, patch and change management, user access management, vendor risk management and data security for 2022 and 2023.

“Having satisfied itself based on the submissions, and remedial measures undertaken by the bank, the Reserve Bank, has decided to lift the afore-mentioned restrictions placed on Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited,” the central bank said.

The RBI’s decision follows the bank's successful implementation of remedial measures and compliance validation through an external audit.

“We will continue to work closely with the RBI to shortly resume digital onboarding of new customers and issuing fresh credit cards,” said a spokesperson for Kotak Mahindra Bank. 

RBI's embargo came soon after Ashok Vaswani took over as managing director and chief executive officer on 1 January 2024. The bank undertook remedial measures to address the supervisory concerns and submitted compliances to RBI. It also appointed Grant Thornton Bharat as the external auditor as part of measures to plug gaps in its IT systems.