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HDFC Bank Ltd has said that it will refund commissions to auto loan customers who had ‘vailed of’ a bundled GPS device between FY14 to FY20.
On 20 July 2020 that car loan customers of HDFC Bank were forced to purchase a vehicle tracking device in a possible breach of guidelines prohibiting banks from non-financial businesses, Livemint reported.
HDFC Bank executives, Mint had reported, pushed auto loan customers to buy GPS devices costing Rs 18,000-19,500 from 2015 to December 2019. The device in question was sold by Trackpoint GPS, a Mumbai-based firm.
“The refund will be credited to the customer’s repayment bank account as registered with the bank,” the bank said in a newspaper advertisement.
This comes after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last month imposed a Rs 10 crore fine on the private sector lender for selling vehicle-tracking devices to its auto loan customers. RBI said that the decision was taken after an examination of documents pertaining to allegations of improper lending practices in its vehicle-financing operations.
Aditya Puri, the then managing director and chief executive officer of HDFC Bank, had told shareholders at the annual general meeting that after receiving a whistleblower complaint, the bank conducted an internal investigation into the car loan business and took disciplinary action against employees who were found to have been involved in “personal misconduct”.
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