The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has ordered Mastercard to stop taking new customers in India, as authorities there say it violated the country’s rules on how data should be stored.
Mastercard will be banned from issuing new debit, credit or prepaid cards, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). It did not stipulate how long the restrictions would last.
In a statement Wednesday, the central bank said that Mastercard had been given “considerable time and adequate opportunities” to comply with a mandate announced in 2018.
That measure requires all payment providers to store data on Indian users and transactions only on locally based servers. Companies were given six months to comply with the mandate at the time.
The RBI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about why its action against Mastercard was coming now. The move will not impact the company’s existing customers.
Data privacy concerns are on the rise around the world, leading to heightened pressure on companies to store their data locally. In China, Tesla recently set up a new facility to store local user information as the automaker faced scrutiny over whether its cars there could ever be used for spying.
China’s extraordinary clampdown on Didi, meanwhile, has focused on allegations that the ride-hailing company has mishandled sensitive data about its users in China.
