Payment firms must return data to India for storage within 24 hours: RBI

RBI sticks clarifies that payment transactions can be processed outside the country.

Foreign payment firms such as Mastercard and Visa can process transactions made in India outside of the country but the related data should be brought back for local storage within 24 hours, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Wednesday.

The announcement was made to clarify the central bank's directive in April last year that mandated foreign firms to store their payments data "only in India" for "unfettered supervisory access".

The RBI rules led to an aggressive lobbying effort from the United States government and American companies who said the directive would increase infrastructure costs and hurt firms' investment plans. A