India Lifts Ban on Mastercard

India has lifted business restrictions on Mastercard, nearly a year after imposing the ban, once again allowing the cards giant to add new customers in the South Asian market after it demonstrated "satisfactory compliance" with the local data storage rules, the central bank said on Thursday. From a report: In a series of moves last year, the Reserve Bank of India indefinitely barred Mastercard, American Express and Diners Club from issuing new debit, credit or prepaid cards to customers over noncompliance with local data storage rules. The business restrictions on American Express and Diners Club remain in place in the country, though they are permitted to continue to serve their existing customer base. The report adds: Unveiled in 2018, the local data-storage rules require payments firms to store all Indian transaction data within servers in the country. Visa, Mastercard and several other firms, as well as the U.S. government, previously requested New Delhi to reconsider its rules, which they argued were designed to allow the regulator "unfettered supervisory access."

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