Question : Payment Aggregators

(a) whether the guideline of Regulation of Payment Aggregators and Payment Gateways which will come into effect from the 1st of January, 2022 will impact the ability of consumers to get automated refunds for online transactions and if so, whether the Government intends to take measures to mitigate the same and if so, the details thereof;
(b) whether the Ministry was consulted by the RBI to understand the impact of these guidelines on customers; and
(c) if so, whether the Ministry has made any representation to RBI in this regard and if so, the details thereof?

THE MINISTER OF STATE
CONSUMER AFFAIRS, FOOD AND PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION
(SHRI ASHWINI KUMAR CHOUBEY)


(a) : As informed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), no such instruction has been issued. In terms of RBI circular CO.DPSS.POLC.No.S-516/02-14-003/2021-22 dated 07-09-2021 on “Tokenisation – Card Transactions: Permitting Card-on-File Tokenisation (CoFT) Services”,

(i) With effect from January 1, 2022, no entity in the card transaction/ payment chain, other than the card issuers and/ or card networks, shall store the actual card data. Any such data stored previously shall be purged.

(ii) For transaction tracking and/ or reconciliation purposes, entities can store limited data – last four digits of actual card number and card issuer’s name – in compliance with the applicable standards.

(b) & (c) : Policy decisions related to payment and settlement systems in the country are taken by the Board for Regulation and Supervision of Payment and Settlement Systems (BPSS), a sub-committee of the Central Board of the RBI. The Governor of the RBI is the Chairperson of BPSS.

Prior to issuance of guidelines on regulation of the Payment Aggregators (PAs) and Payment Gateways in March, 2020, RBI had placed a discussion paper in public domain. The feedback received on the same was submitted to the BPSS, and the subsequent guidelines were issued on the basis of the directions of BPSS.

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