The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said to the Supreme Court that it has denied the permission to WhatsApp to go live for full scale operations on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment system and RBI also denied that its circular on April 6, 2018 on “Storage of Payment System Data” has been toned down by FAQs issued on June 26, 2019.
The RBI told that “concerned that WhatsApp was storing some payment data elements outside India beyond the permitted timelines indicated in the circular and the Frequently Asked Questions on ‘Storage of Payment System Data’ issued by RBI on June 26, 2019.”
The Permission for UPI payments was granted to WhatsApp by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) after compliance with the regulatory norms.
In the case of Centre for Accountability for Systematic Change (CASC) v. Union of India, the RBI states,
“RBI always weighs and explores the available regulatory options to ensure expeditious and complete compliance with the circular requirements and has been continuously taking up the matter with NPCI, which has resulted in the compliance from WhatsApp.”
