RBI lifts business restrictions imposed on Mastercard

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday announced that it has lifted business restrictions imposed on Mastercard Inc with immediate effect.

Now, the payment system operator Mastercard is allowed to onboard new customers. Mastercard is authorised to operate a card network in the country under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. The RBI had imposed restrictions on Mastercard in July 2021 for failing to comply with norms related to the storage of payment data.

In view of the satisfactory compliance demonstrated by Mastercard Asia / Pacific Pte. Ltd. with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular dated April 6, 2018, on Storage of Payment System Data, the restrictions imposed, vide order dated July 14, 2021, on on-boarding of new domestic customers have been lifted with immediate effect, the RBI said in a statement.

RBI had, by order dated July 14, 2021, imposed restrictions on Mastercard Asia / Pacific Pte. Ltd. from onboarding new domestic customers (debit, credit or prepaid) onto its card network from July 22, 2021 for non-compliance with the RBI circular dated April 6, 2018 on storage of payment system data.

As per the 'Storage of Payment System Data' norms all "system providers shall ensure that the entire data relating to payment systems operated by them are stored in a system only in India".

This data should include the full end-to-end transaction details/information collected/carried/processed as part of the message/payment instruction. For the foreign leg of the transaction, if any, the data can also be stored in the foreign country, if required.