Bengaluru, October 12: The Reserve Bank of India has informed multinational payments companies that they must stick to its mandate requiring them to store data pertaining to Indian users within the country by October 15. According to an Economic Times report, the central bank could even initiate action against those which do not comply with the instructions that were announced in April.

With reference to an RBI circular in April, all system providers will have to ensure that the entire data relating to payment systems operated by them are stored in a system only in India. Time was given till October 15 to comply with the mandate. WhatsApp Starts Labeling Forwarded Messages.

As per sources quoted in the report, 80 percent of the companies have already complied. India based PhonePe and Paytm, the payments arms of global giants like WhatsApp, Amazon and Alibaba have also adhered to RBI’s diktat, bankers said. In addition to this, payments networks Visa and Mastercard have started work on hosting data locally.

In the RBI circular, it was said, "Ensuring the safety and security of payment systems data by adoption of the best global standards and their continuous monitoring and surveillance is essential to reduce the risks from data breaches while maintaining a healthy pace of growth in digital payments."

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 12, 2018 10:27 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).