Finance Ministry Proposes RBI’s Data Localisation Directive Be Relaxed

After the RBI’s directive to payment system operators in the country to store data within India, the finance ministry has now proposed relaxing the directive.
Reports have surfaced that in a meeting held in June with RBI officials and executives from payment companies, the finance ministry suggested that a possible solution could be that companies would be allowed to store their data offshore, as long as a copy was kept in India.
Since the RBI issued the directive, companies have been opposing the apex bank’s restriction on storing data overseas and have been lobbying that the directive be revoked.
The finance ministry also proposed that the RBI issue a clarification on the kind of data that needs to be stored in India and the time given to companies implement the directive.
The meeting in June was chaired by the government’s economic affairs secretary Subhash Chandra Garg and attended by other ministry and RBI officials, as well as executives from companies such as MasterCard, Visa, and American Express.
At the meeting, RBI executive director S Ganesh Kumar said that the bank had been approached about the companies’ concerns and was in the process of issuing a circular to clarify the rules.
Source: INC42