Amazon India Looks For More Clarity On Data Localisation Guidelines

Amazon India is looking for more clarity on issues surrounding the operations of its digital payment service Amazon Pay in India in view of the data localisation notice served by the RBI in April. According to reports, its major concern is about the final view of the RBI on data mirroring and the use of the word “only” in the guidelines. The company has also set up a team within the payments vertical Amazon Pay to work on the RBI guidelines.

Amazon has also been looking to introduce its own UPI services in the country. However, the plan is stuck due to concerns around the storage of data within India.

According to the RBI guidelines, all system providers shall ensure that the entire data relating to payment systems operated by them are stored in a system only in India. The payment companies have been given time until October 15 to comply with these guidelines.

Since the first circular in April, the RBI has not put out any updates on the matter, increasing the anxiety among industry players. At the time, RBI had asked all payment system operators in the country to store payment data relating to their Indian customers on servers in the country to provide unfettered access to regulators and to ensure that user details remain secure in case of privacy breaches.

Media sources have indicated it could be challenging for several players to comply with the norms by October 15.

An Inc42 email enquiry sent to Amazon India remained unanswered till the time of publishing this article.

Most recently, RBI had also asked the digital payment companies to submit fortnightly updates on the progress made on storing data in India.

Recently, it was also reported that global search giant Google has agreed to abide by all the RBI requirements but has sought for around two months extra to comply with the guidelines. In a media interaction, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has also pitched in for a free flow of cross-border data on the internet, emphasising on security and privacy of users.

In the era of increasingly privacy-conscious Indians and especially Indian government, which has continued to give strict warnings to giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google, the draft Data Protection Bill has been much discussed for its data localisation narrative. Companies such as PhonePe, Paytm, Xiaomi have already been supporting the data localisation move by the Indian government.

Apart from Amazon Pay, there are other payment companies such as Visa and Mastercard which are also running against time on storing payments data in the country.

[The development was reported by ET]

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