Foreign Payment Companies Must Store Indians Data In India… RBI’s Good Policy
Recently, RBI issued a policy that requires that all credit card and e-payment data of Indians made in India to be “stored in India” and gave all payment companies 6 months to comply.
No surprise – the western credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex) companies have started an intense lobbying effort and want to get this reversed with reasons all not really strong such as:
* this will cost them millions of dollars in datacenters and other investiments. So what – are you not tapping a giant and fast growing market?
* foreign companies were caught off guard – why are you so surprised, sooner or later this was expected?
* companies say that this would hamper global fraud detection as they should be allowed to keep backup data overseas. Do these companies do the same for US and other countries data – keep a backup data in other countries? RBI said this does not cut it – and India is not a small island nation that would get entirely crippled by a single natural disaster. Well said!
* RBI’s rule does not meet global norms – well global norms are tailored to suit other-home countries. Both India and China are coming up with rules to suit their needs.
* how long to keep the data in India – indefinitely of course!
* RBI wants better monitoring, and possibly prevent foreign government from tapping this data. Hard to argue with this?
So the fight continues, RBI is holding its ground. It is about time global companies start paying attention to India’s needs and India’s Rule of Law…
Source: Reuters
- 31 May 2018
- WerIndia
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