The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has reportedly asked Google and WhatsApp to share plans on how they will store all UPI-based payment data locally in India. At present, both companies have started storing all payments data in India, but apparently they still keep a mirror copy abroad.
According ET report on Friday, NPCI has sent separate letters to Google and WhatsApp asking to comply guidelines set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). They want search giant Google and messaging application WhatsApp to store data of Indian users on their respective UPI-based payment apps exclusively within the country, which was made mandatory by RBI, and the deadline set by the bank was October 15.
“Companies say they store payments data in India, but are keeping a mirror copy abroad. India, however, is looking at keeping everything locally,” a senior government official told ET.
While Google hasn’t said anything publicly on the RBI regulation, its spokesperson in a statement to ET said, “We are working to increase our data residency capacity in India to support our partners that are regulated by RBI.”
WhatsApp on the other hand, had earlier said that it has started storing payments data in India but there was no clarity on whether the data is being stored locally or ‘exclusively’ within the country.
To note, WhatsApp’s UPI-based payments system in currently being tested by almost 1 million people in the country. The Facebook-owned messaging app is still awaiting regulatory approval for its payments business.
