WhatsApp sets up system to comply with India's payments data storage norms

Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp said on Tuesday that it has built a system that stores payments-related data locally in India, in a bid to comply with a central bank directive that all such data should, within six months, be stored only in the country.

WhatsApp rolled out a test of its payment system in India, its biggest market by users, earlier this year.

“In response to India’s payments data circular, we’ve built a system that stores payments-related data locally in India,” WhatsApp said in an emailed statement.

The Reserve Bank in April said all payments data should be stored only in India for “unfettered supervisory access”, a decision that has led to intense lobbying by global firms that worry it would cost them millions of dollars.

RBI, in its April order, had said it is important to have "unfettered supervisory access to data stored with these system providers as also with their service providers/intermediaries/third party vendors and other entities in the payment ecosystem" to ensure better monitoring of payment service operators.

RBI further said data should include the full end-to-end transaction details, information collected/carried/ processed as part of the message/payment instruction.