The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday imposed restrictions on financial services provider Mastercard Asia Pacific, barring the company from adding new customers in India from July 22.
The restriction will be applicable for debit, credit and prepaid cards offered by the Singapore-based company. However, existing customers will not be impacted.
The action was taken because Mastercard violated the RBI’s norms on storage of payment systems data, the central bank said in a statement. “Mastercard shall advise all card issuing banks and non-banks to conform to these directions,” the RBI added.
The central bank said that in a circular issued on April 6, 2018, it had asked payment system providers operating in the country to store their entire data in India within a period of six months. This data included end-to-end transaction details, information collected, carried and processed from customers and other details.
They were also required to submit a compliance report and a system audit report to the RBI. However, Mastercard failed to comply with these regulations, according to the central bank.
In April, the RBI had imposed similar restrictions on American Express and Diners Club, not allowing them to add customers from May 1, according to Mint.
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