5 ms·

Disclosure: I work for a fintech in India, specialized in card payment. It seems here people see this rule as "merchants can't store card numbers any more". Th

Disclosure: I work for a fintech in India, specialized in card payment. It seems here people see this rule as "merchants can't store card numbers any more". This is actually a lot more than that, this is the new rule: you cannot store card numbers for recurring payment. Even if you are PCI-DSS compliant. Even if you are audited by the RBI. Even if you're sponsored by a bank. The only way to store a Visa number is to use the Visa tokenization service. Now if you know a bit of the card payment industry, you will know that you need the card number just to process the payment, the refund, etc. So you still have to store the card number. And you can. You just can't use it for recurring payment any more. My personal take: Giving full control to Visa and Mastercard over their card numbers for recurring payment seems to be a nice transfer of power to these two giants. But the time scale has been very short (a few months only). So practically, most recurring card payments will stop working or be illegal in two weeks. This is will more or less break existing subscriptions working with cards. India (the RBI at least) has been in a campaign for independence in the payment infrastructure. American Express[0], Diners[1], Mastercard[2] have been banned in India. Diners' ban has been lifted now, but still. Rupay is a failure with a market share of 0.34%[3] (in comparison UPI is at 37.73%), in spite of having ZERO MDR on debit transactions[4]. This change is not for the sake of security. You can have the best firewalls, cutting-edge HSM, security team and pass 12 audits a year. You will be allowed to save these card numbers but you won't be able to authorized to use it for recurring payments. This is just a move against cards, and to promote UPI instead. By making recurring card payment a hindrance, more people will transition to UPI. [0] https://www.americanexpress.com/en-in/company/notice/rbi-important-update/index.html https://www.americanexpress.com/en-in/company/notice/rbi-imp... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/india-banking-american-express/rbi-bans-amex-diners-club-from-issuing-new-cards-for-violating-data-rules-idINKBN2CA26T https://www.reuters.com/article/india-banking-american-expre... [2] https://westfaironline.com/138440/mastercard-banned-from-new-card-issuances-in-india/ https://westfaironline.com/138440/mastercard-banned-from-new... [3] https://www.npci.org.in/PDF/npci/statics/RETAIL-PAYMENTS-STATISTICS-Nov-21.xlsx https://www.npci.org.in/PDF/npci/statics/RETAIL-PAYMENTS-STA... [4] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/et-editorial/stop-discrimination-against-rupay/articleshow/87724175.cms?from=mdr https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/et-editorial/st...

spikengineer 5y ago
I don't agree with your interpretation on this being a stealth tactic but even if this was one it's just the state institutions acting in the interest of their mandate. This might not be beneficial to you employer or Visa or MasterCard or few high flying credit card users of the super rich class but it is in the interest of the people. If they think it's time to move beyond cards due to the strategic overdependence on foreign service providers like Visa who can disrupt the Indian financial system at the behest of their US govt or other interests it's the right thing to discourage them directly or indirectly. Think in the interest of the people. WTO commitments are not worth the paper they are written on. State should do the right thing to benefit the people as a whole not worry about inconvenience to a few people or few middle men or foreign companies.
- kranner 5y ago
  > If they think it's time to move beyond cards due to the strategic overdependence on foreign service providers like Visa who can disrupt the Indian financial system at the behest of their US govt Is there any evidence that the RBI actually thinks this? You seemingly criticise GP on their inference of an ulterior motive but then posit your own ulterior motive.
  - spikengineer 5y ago
    Yes, some basis exists for such assumptions. RuPay and UPI were originally conceptualised by RBI and Govt of India to solve the overdependence problem. Otherwise RBI and GoI had no reason to introduce RuPay and they could have let the market develop organically. Recent RBI moves of data localisation and enforcement actions against Diners, American Express and Mastercard also indicate strong intent.
    - kranner 5y ago
      I'm talking about your statement of "disrupt[ing] the Indian financial system at the behest of their US govt". It's a pretty strong claim. If you have any evidence for this, please share it here.

spikengineer 5y ago

I don't agree with your interpretation on this being a stealth tactic but even if this was one it's just the state institutions acting in the interest of their mandate. This might not be beneficial to you employer or Visa or MasterCard or few high flying credit card users of the super rich class but it is in the interest of the people. If they think it's time to move beyond cards due to the strategic overdependence on foreign service providers like Visa who can disrupt the Indian financial system at the behest of their US govt or other interests it's the right thing to discourage them directly or indirectly. Think in the interest of the people. WTO commitments are not worth the paper they are written on. State should do the right thing to benefit the people as a whole not worry about inconvenience to a few people or few middle men or foreign companies.

kranner 5y ago
> If they think it's time to move beyond cards due to the strategic overdependence on foreign service providers like Visa who can disrupt the Indian financial system at the behest of their US govt Is there any evidence that the RBI actually thinks this? You seemingly criticise GP on their inference of an ulterior motive but then posit your own ulterior motive.
- spikengineer 5y ago
  Yes, some basis exists for such assumptions. RuPay and UPI were originally conceptualised by RBI and Govt of India to solve the overdependence problem. Otherwise RBI and GoI had no reason to introduce RuPay and they could have let the market develop organically. Recent RBI moves of data localisation and enforcement actions against Diners, American Express and Mastercard also indicate strong intent.
  - kranner 5y ago
    I'm talking about your statement of "disrupt[ing] the Indian financial system at the behest of their US govt". It's a pretty strong claim. If you have any evidence for this, please share it here.