US Payment Firms Want Government To Dilute Data Storage Rules, Paytm Alone Pushing For Local Storage

According to news reports, United States-based payment firms have persuaded the union government to reconsider stringent data storage regulations. Their campaign to get the government to rethink on the issue, however, has not gone down well with companies such as Paytm.

At the heart of the issue is the Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) directive that asks payments firms to "store data locally for unfettered supervisory access". Foreign companies such as Mastercard, Visa and American Express would incur costs of millions of dollars if they have to abide by the RBI directive. Some players. such as Paytm, would stand a better chance since their data storage is already in India.

Paytm has not only publicly backed the proposal but also sought to thwart aggressive lobbying by foreign firms to dilute the norms. It has indicated that local data storage is in the national interest and that payments firms should readily agree to data storage norms.

Earlier in May, when the payments council of India (PCI) wanted to tell RBI that most of its members had concerns regarding local data storage, Paytm is learnt to have objected strongly to the move.

Reuters quoted a Paytm spokesperson as saying that "for the benefits of the country and to uphold the need for data privacy, all the data related to the Indian users must be stored and processed only in the country."