Data localisation: 80% players comply with norms, say sources

With the RBI not relenting on extending the Monday’s deadline for data localisation, as many as 80 per cent of industry players including Amazon, Alibaba and WhatsApp have complied with the data storage norms, according to official sources. However, they said some debit/credit companies are yet to comply with data storage norms and have reportedly sought more time. The Reserve Bank is not contemplating review of its notification on data localisation norms, the sources said.

In April, the central bank had given six months to global payment companies to store transaction data of Indian customers within India. Although 80 per cent of the players operating in India have complied with the Reserve Bank directive, some global financial technology companies have reportedly sought an extension to the October 15 timeline.

“The RBI will look at things on a case-to-case basis from tomorrow while handling the subject,” one of the sources said, without mentioning if the central bank would take action or impose penalties for non-compliance. In its April monetary policy review, the RBI had said that in order to ensure better monitoring of payment service operators it was important to have “unfettered supervisory access to data stored with these system providers as also with their service providers/ intermediaries/third party vendors and other entities in the payment ecosystem”.

“All system providers shall ensure that the entire data relating to payment systems operated by them are stored in a system only in India,” it had said. The RBI had further said that data should include the full end-to-end transaction details, information collected, carried, processed as part of the message, payment instruction.