Mastercard submits new audit to India’s central bank to lift ban on card issuance – report

One of the world's leading financial services, Mastercard, has submitted a new audit report to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as the company seeks to overturn the latest ban on card issuance in the country.

The ban announced by the regulator earlier this month came amid concerns over the US credit card company's handling of data processed abroad. The company had reportedly breached the 2018 law banning financial service firms from storing payments data on Indian customers outside of the country.

The RBI introduced the penalties, saying that a “system audit report” submitted by Mastercard's auditor Deloitte in April was unsatisfactory. The ban applies to both debit and credit card issues to new customers, and doesn't affect existing Mastercard clients in India.

According to Mastercard, a “supplemental audit” had been performed by Deloitte, and a new report was submitted on July 20, six days after the central bank announced the ban.

“We look forward to continuing our conversations with the RBI and reinforcing how seriously we take our obligations. We are hopeful that this latest filing provides the assurances required to address their concerns,” Mastercard said in a statement to Reuters.

Back in 2018, the company said that it had begun storing data at its facility in the Indian western city of Pune to comply with the data storage rules. But an unnamed source told the agency that Mastercard still processes a part of each Indian transaction through data centers abroad, and later transfers and stores that data in Pune.

American Express, whose presence in India is much more insignificant than that of Mastercard or Visa, has also been banned from issuing new cards since April for violating the same rules.

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