Reserve Bank of India issues clarifications on data localisation circular

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued clarifications on certain implementation issues sought by payment system operators on the data regulations. It said that all payment-related data has to be stored within India. In cases where data gets processed outside the country, it needs to be brought back within 24 hours. The central bank has thus reiterated its stand of last years on compulsory localisation of payments data.

In April 2018, the RBI had issued a note mandating that all payments firms should store data within India. The move affected players like Visa, Mastercard, and the likes of Pay-Pal, Google Pay and Amazon Pay among others.

“In case the processing is done abroad, the data should be deleted from the systems abroad and brought back to India not later than the one business day or 24 hours from payment processing, whichever is earlier. The same should be stored only in India,” RBI said in a circular on Wednesday.

Earlier, the central bank had not made a clear cut distinction between transactions which are completed within the country and transactions which originates here and gets completed overseas.