Private lender Kotak Mahindra Bank has temporarily shelved the services of its digital savings account opening scheme ‘811’ in adherence to the Supreme Court verdict, which bans the mandatory usage of Aadhaar card as identity and KYC proof in banks.
“About 3/4th of our account opening has been through 811…The incremental new customer accretion gets impacted till we come up with a new solution and we are working on a few,” said Dipak Gupta, Joint Managing Director of Kotak Bank.
The lender revealed that it met the target of doubling its customer base to 16 million from 8 million customers in 18 months ending September from the time of its launch of 811.
Kotak Bank had launched 811 as zero-balance savings account in March 2017, keeping the demand of digital payments in mind just after the demonetisation which was announced in the 11th month of 2016 — November 8.
By September end 2018, Kotak Bank’s CASA (Current And Savings Accounts) ratio inflated to 50.2 percent of total accounts from 47.8 percent last year.
Demonetisation multiplied the popularity of digitisation and as a result of this 811 too gained immense popularity, that allowed E-KYC through Aadhaar, said the bank’s Founder and Chief Uday Kotak.
