By Pragya Srivastava
The Reserve Bank of India has asked payments banks to store user data only in India, saying that public’s confidence in the system is key to its success. “We are mandating that all payment system operators will be required to keep their data in the country,” RBI Deputy Governor BP Kanungo said while addressing a press conference after the first MPC meeting of the fiscal year 2018-19.
Asserting that the payment ecosystem in the country has undergone rapid expansion with new systems, new players and new players being added, BP Kanungo said that public’s confidence in the system is key to sustain this growth. He added that to maintain the public’s trust, it is crucial for the RBI to ramp-up its monitoring over these payment players.
The Deputy governor also said that the RBI has observed that payment system players, some of them store their data in India, some of them don’t do store it in India and some of them do it partially. The RBI gave six months to comply with the order.
“It is, therefore, necessary that security of the payment system is robust and continuously upgraded and best in class as per the international standard. Thorough monitoring and surveillance (by RBI) are also crucial,” BP Kanungo said while mandating payments players to store the data only in India.
(This article was originally published on Financial Express Online on April 5, 2018)