India has lifted restrictions on Mastercard cards after the payments giant demonstrated “satisfactory compliance” with the local data storage rules of the South Asian market, the central bank said. on Thursday.
In a series of moves last year, the Reserve Bank of India Mastercard is banned indefinitelyAmerican Express and Diners Club issue new debit, credit or prepaid cards to non-compliant customers local data storage rules (PDF). Business restrictions on American Express and Diners Club remain in place in the country, although they are allowed to continue serving their existing customer bases.
“Given the satisfactory compliance demonstrated by Mastercard Asia / Pacific Pte. Ltd. with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular 6 April 2018 on Retention of Payment System Data, restrictions imposed, video order 14 July 2021, on reception of guests New domestic shipments were lifted immediately, the RBI said in a statement on Thursday.
Announced in 2018, local data storage rules require payment companies to store all Indian transaction data in servers in the country. Visa, Mastercard and several others, as well as the US government, have previously asked New Delhi to review its rules, which they argue are designed to allow the regulator to “continue to unregulated near-surveillance”.
Mastercard has identified India as a key growth market and has invested more than $2 billion in the country over the past decade.
This is an evolving story. More to follow…
