New Delhi: Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp has built a system that stores payments-related data locally in India. The move was aimed at complying with Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) data localisation norms, a WhatsApp spokesperson said. WhatsApp is running a pilot of its payments service in the country with almost 1 million users.
“In response to India’s payments data circular, we’ve built a system that stores payments-related data locally in India. WhatsApp payments is useful for people in their daily lives and we hope to expand the feature to all of India soon so we can contribute to the country’s financial inclusion goals,” said a WhatsApp spokesperson in response to queries from Mint.
This comes at a time when most payment companies still have limited data storage in India and are struggling to comply with data localisation norms.
The RBI had set 15 October as the deadline for payment system operators to store data in India. Besides Visa, American Express, Facebook, PayPal, and Mastercard, Google and WhatsApp are also required to store date in the country.
Last month, technology giant Google agreed to comply with the data localisation norms set by the RBI, but sought an extension of the deadline to put a proper mechanism in place.
During a recent meeting between Google chief executive officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, the company agreed to comply with all norms and sought time till the end of December, a senior government official told Mint, requesting anonymity.
However, Google has still not confirmed this development.
“All system providers shall ensure that the entire data relating to payment systems operated by them are stored in a system only in India. This data should include the full end-to-end transaction details/information collected/carried/processed as part of the message/payment instruction,” the 6 April RBI circular had said, adding that for the overseas leg of the transaction, the data may be stored in a foreign country.
The rollout of WhatsApp Payments in India has always been questioned by the IT ministry which sought clarity on whether the new UPI-based service conforms to the RBI’s security and privacy rules.
In August, the Supreme Court also sought the response of WhatsApp on a plea alleging that the social media giant has not complied with the provision of appointing a grievance officer and other laws of India. The petition contended that WhatsApp is a foreign company with no office or servers in India and to run payments service here it is obligated to have its office and payments in India.
After being at loggerheads with the government over compliance with Indian laws and the mechanism to ensure traceability of fake messages, WhatsApp last month appointed Komal Lahiri as grievance officer for India and detailed the process for users to flag concerns and complaints, including those around fake news.
As of February 2017, there were more than 200 million monthly active WhatsApp users in India. There are more than 1.5 billion WhatsApp users across the world.