HDFC Bank’s Dubai International Finance Centre Branch Prohibited From Onboarding New Clients

The Dubai Financial Services Authority has prohibited HDFC Bank's Dubai branch — Dubai International Financial Centre — from soliciting new customers.

It has prohibited "soliciting, onboarding or engaging in any financial promotions with any new client", according to an exchange filing on Saturday.

The prohibition includes advising on financial products, arranging deals, arranging credit and advising on credit.

'Financial services', in this regard, refer to "advising on financial products; arranging deals in investments; arranging credit, and advising on credit; and arranging custody", the filing stated.

It added that the prohibition is not applicable to the services provided for existing customers of the DIFC branch, and also to "the onboarding of and servicing of customers who may have been previously offered or provided financial services and who had not, at such time, been onboarded as clients of the DIFC Branch."

The bank has already initiated necessary steps to fulfill the directives mentioned by DFSA and said that it is "committed to work with the DFSA to promptly remediate and address the DFSA concerns at the earliest", the filing mentioned.

The notice by the DFSA comes after India's largest private sector lender faced complaints of misusing fixed deposits by at least four non-resident Indian customers. Complaints were filed in Nagpur, Chandigarh and Gurgaon, two people with direct knowledge of the matter told NDTV Profit earlier in July.

The people had said that deposits worth Rs 25-30 crore had been misused to pay for Credit Suisse's Additional Tier-1 bonds by the bank's Middle East operations.