RBI extends card tokenisation rule by 6 months after industry request

Tokenisation refers to the technology of substituting sensitive card data with random numbers

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday extended the deadline for wiping off card data on merchant sites and applying tokenisation by another six months as merchants and payments companies expressed their inability to meet the December 31 deadline.

In a statement on its website, the central bank said “at the request of industry stakeholders”, the timeline is being extended until June 30, 2022.

After that, all card data “shall be purged”. In addition to tokenisation, industry stakeholders must devise an alternative mechanism to handle recurring e-mandates, equated monthly instalment (EMI) options, etc. or any post-transaction activity that currently involves the