The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday lifted the restrictions on American Express Banking Corp, allowing it to restart onboarding of new domestic customers on its card network.
The central bank had put the curbs on American Express in May 2021 for not complying with a circular it had issued on storage of payments data in 2018.
RBI had in June lifted similar restrictions on Mastercard after 11 months.
“In view of the satisfactory compliance demonstrated by American Express Banking Corp…the restrictions imposed, vide order dated April 23, 2021, on on-boarding of new domestic customers have been lifted with immediate effect,” the central bank said in a notification.
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“American Express Banking Corp and Diners Club International are Payment System Operators authorised to operate Card Networks in the country under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007,” it added.
This order had not impacted customers of American Express who had been onboarded prior to the ban, which was imposed by the central bank under Section 17 of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.
As per the 2018 circular, RBI had directed card issuers to store all data related to transaction details, and other information collected and processed as part of the payment instruction in a system located only in India. Card issuers place compliance report to RBI along with a board-approved system audit report (SAR) by an auditor.