The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has lifted the restrictions imposed on Mastercard Asia/ Pacific Pte Ltd on on-boarding of new domestic customers with immediate effect, Trend reports citing The Indian Express.
“In view of the satisfactory compliance demonstrated by Mastercard with the RBI circular dated April 6, 2018 on Storage of Payment System Data, the restrictions imposed, vide order dated July 14, 2021, have been lifted with immediate effect,” the RBI said.
The central bank had imposed restrictions on Mastercard from on-boarding new domestic customers (debit, credit or prepaid) onto its card network from July 22, 2021 for non-compliance with the RBI regulations for storage of data in India. The RBI had given almost three years for Mastercard to comply with the regulatory directions, but it was unable to complete the process.
By the RBI circular on Storage of Payment System Data dated April 6, 2018, all system providers were directed to ensure that within six months the entire data (full end-to-end transaction details, information collected or carried or processed as part of the message or payment instruction) relating to payment systems operated by them is stored in a system only in India. They were also required to report compliance to the RBI and submit a board-approved system audit report conducted by a CERT-In empanelled auditor within the timelines specified.
However, credit and card firms with global operations have been resisting the move, citing costs, security risk, lack of clarity, timeline, and the possibility of data localisation demand from other countries.