Digital Ops Embargo: Kotak Bank says most of the work is done
Kotak Mahindra Bank has indicated that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is reviewing the progress of its technology upgrades. The bank's management said that while it is in regular communication with the regulator, it cannot predict when the embargo on its digital ops would be lifted.
«We are in constant touch with the RBI, we constantly give them updates and meet them, they do their own evaluation and this has been helpful,» Ashok Vaswani, managing director, Kotak Mahindra Bank, told analysts. «They (RBI) have provided us guidance. It's very hard to say at what stage the RBI will say we are going to lift you out of jail, I honestly don't know. Most of the work has been done.»
The bank acknowledged that not all of its assumptions regarding the impact of the ban aligned with its initial expectations. However, the overall impact remains consistent with the previously estimated annual cost of ₹450 crore, it said.
«Obviously, every single assumption did not work out exactly as we thought,» Vaswani told ET during the post-earnings media call. «Some things have worked out better and some things have been worse, but the good news is that the total impact of the embargo is still in line with what we had initially estimated at about ₹450 crore annually.»
Vaswani said his team made a bunch of assumptions on how portfolios would be made, how much the bank would have to spend and how much acquisition and marketing would cost, a pretty complex set of variables that it was trying to manage. «At that time, Devang (Gheewala,
