RBI restates its stand on data localization | Fusion - WeRIndia

So far, the Reserve Bank of India is saying the payment data of Indian customers should only be stored in India.

It reiterated its stand on data localization norms yesterday.

As per the RBI, the payment data of the citizens should only be in India.

If the payment processing is done abroad, the data should be deleted by bringing it back to India within 24 hours.

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For cross border transactions, a copy of the data of domestic leg may be stored abroad.

However, before sharing the data with the foreign regulators, the RBI’s approval is mandatory.

The central bank issued certain norms in April 2018 on payment data of Indians. It asked the payment firms to store the data only on local servers. RBI set a deadline of six months to comply with the norms.

Some foreign firms missed the deadline.

Last Monday, Commerce and Industry Minister held a meeting with the tech and e-commerce companies.

These companies brought their issues related to RBI data storage requirements to the notice of the ministry. They also put forth their concerns over data processing related guidelines that are issued by the RBI.

The ministry released a statement saying that the RBI would look into the matter.

Generally, global companies store the data on the global server but due to the circular of the RBI, the companies will have to store the data on local servers.

The storage of payment data on the global server is difficult to supervise and manage.

Hence, the RBI issued this notice in view that local storage of data would help supervise and conduct an investigation with ease in case of the need.

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