Digital payment in India :Google ready to comply with RBI norms for payment services by December

Internet leader Google, which is offering digital payment services in India through Google Pay (formerly Google Tez) have agreed to obey Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) norms for payment services by December.

According to RBI norms, every payment service provider in India has to store the data locally, followed by security concerns. Whereas Google has announced that it will fully abide by the payment norms of RBI and said that it would take some time to comply with the full procedure, most probably by December end.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in April had instructed payment system operators to store all data, along with full end-to-end transaction details and information collected, within India. RBI gave six months to the service providers till October 15 to comply.

As informed by a senior IT official, “Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a recent meeting, informed Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad that their digital payments platform Google Pay, will comply with all Indian regulations.”

Another official source said that during his US visit of Law and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was informed by Google that they are ready to comply with RBI rules but want two months more to comply with data storage rule. Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad visited Google headquarters in California in August-end.

The concern around data security is rising in India so the Reserve Bank of India has asked payment services firms to support an update on action taken by them to store transaction data in the country in every 14 days.

RBI had said that right now "only certain" payment system operators and their outsourcing partners collect the payment system data either partly or completely in the country.

As reported by Mint, a payment expert regarding the issue said, “There is no comparison between the financial data stored by Google and other payment operators such as Visa and Mastercard. Google Pay is a payment app, which works on a payments platform built by the National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI), whereas Visa and Mastercard have their own payment networks.”

Google's official statement came just after few says Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai reportedly wrote to Minister for IT Ravi Shankar Prasad on September 5, where he supported the free flow of data across borders. Pichai reasoned that this would encourage global firms to make a contribution to India’s digital economy

Google had launched its payment app Google Tez in September 2017, but changed its name recently to Google Pay.

This is a time when most countries around the world are employing protectionist policies across the board economically and digitally. Pichai viewed that It’s important to look at the pros and cons of being liberal with user data.

A Reuters report said that US trade groups, like Amazon, American Express and Microsoft, have opposed India’s push to store data locally and the issue could further undermine already complicated economic relations between India and the US.

As of January 8, 2018, the old Android Pay and Google Wallet have unified into a single pay system under Google Pay.