The global digital payments leader, PayPal is opening a local transaction data center for Indian customers. The company is engaging with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to understand its mandate.
RBI has recently issued a new mandate asking payment firms to comply with it within six months. According to the new mandate, payment firms and system operators need to store their system data locally. It can either be partly local or completely. ?
Sri Shivananda, PayPal’s CTO said, “One of our competitive advantages is the fact that we look at compliance and regulations, and work with local government. Our intent is always to work with regulators and comply as closely and as best possible.”
The global payments firm is the first among all payment companies in India to respond to RBI’s note. PayPal faces heavy competition from Paytm, WhatsApp and Google’s Tez in India. PayPal remains to be a pioneer in the payments solution market.
Indian banking regulator, RBI has followed Russia to insist local strange of transaction information. The growing privacy and security concerns have fueled the need for storing data locally. Moving individual’s financial data out of the country can seriously damage the economy.
Shivananda further added, "Most countries are looking at options to help their economies participate in the global market, and are at the same time, trying to protect their citizens from privacy and security risks. Even though we are prevalent in cross-border trade, we are just getting started here. All options are on the table. We absolutely intend to do whatever is best for our customers.”
The payments company is going to make necessary changes in its platform to comply with new local rules. PayPal is also seeking support from the Indian government for UPI, a new standard that allows easy money transactions. PayPal is still popular among freelancers and small Indian firms that receive International payments.