Payments providers write to RBI to reconsider data storage directive

The RBI on April 6 directed all payments service providers to make sure "that the entire data relating to payment systems operated by them are stored in a system only in India."

International payments services providers — including foreign banks that have a small number of wholesale branches in India, and switch providers — have asked the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to reconsider its recent guidelines on data localisation, according to sources in the know.

The affected entities have written separately to the central bank, and have taken up the issue jointly as a lobby group.

A letter Business Standard has seen says that data storage in many cases happens in network clouds provided by third parties and some of these companies are bound by laws of their home countries.

Besides, privacy laws of