RBI says no option for Mastercard, Visa & AE: Have to move data centres in India

The government has gone all serious about securing financial data and wants to leave no-stone-unturned to ensure better monitoring of data.

In April, the RBI issued a notification and asked all payment system operators in the country to store all data within India. They were also asked to comply with the instructions within six months.

The RBI’s notification was also met with strong resentment by mobile application-based lending companies which felt all hassled while moving data from countries like Singapore to India as moving involves a lot of time, effort and cost.

Amidst this, the three big card companies—Mastercard, Visa, and American Express—were at the forefront which conveyed their reservations to the Central bank. These companies were majorly concerned as they process the bulk of the country’s digital transactions and their network processors are situated across the world to maintain peak loads.

Abovementioned card companies, which upped the ante to dilute RBI’s directives, has met with strong oppositions from the central bank that directed the companies to comply with the order, and not complain, according to Reuters.

The report added that the card companies are nervous that the move will disrupt their investment plans, as millions of dollars will be required to open local data centers within six months.

Besides, the companies believe the condition to store data only in India will also hamper global fraud detection and urged they should be allowed to keep a back-up.

The suggestion was, however, turned down by an unidentified Indian official source who said to the news agency that India is not a small island nation that would get entirely crippled by a single natural disaster.

Amidst the directives issued by the RBI, only a few Indian digital payment companies will be affected. The digital payment companies such as Paytm, and homegrown card payment network RuPay, claim to already store their data in India.