The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on June 16 lifted the restrictions on Mastercard to on-board new domestic customers with immediate effect.
On July 14, 2021, RBI had imposed restrictions on Mastercard to onboard new customer over lapses found in compliance with RBI’s 2018 circular on Storage of Payment System Data.
In that circular the central had noted and observed that all not all system providers were storing payments data in India. It had mandated, all system providers shall ensure that the entire data relating to payment systems operated by payment system providers are stored in a system only in India.
Further, this data should include the full end-to-end transaction details, information collected, carried, processed as part of the message and payment instruction. Even for the foreign leg of the transaction, if any, the data can also be stored in the foreign country, if required.
System providers had to ensure compliance on the said requirements latest by October 15, 2018. American Express, Diners and Mastercard were found not in compliance with the above norms.
Subsequently, the central bank had imposed curbs on all three networks, the central bank is yet to lift the restrictions imposed on American Express.
