It looks like the hot Indian payment market is getting a bit of a cool down. According to recent reports found in The Economic Times, Apple seems to be putting a pause on its Unified Payments Interface-based payments platform for India. The main reason for Apple applying the breaks on releasing its payment platform is due to the new data protection bill by The Reserve Bank of India that impacts how companies in start-up use customer data.
Apple, however, is not the only one in this predicament as other payment providers such as WhatsApp and Amazon are both now questioning how best they might be able to participate in the market under the new RIB consumer data law. According to a different The Economics Times article,
“Both WhatsApp Payments and Amazon Pay have not gone live due to similar reasons,” one of them said. “Now with the draft Personal Data Protection Bill also being put out for consultations, these players have to wait for the final decision.”
At a higher level what becomes interesting about this news is that it would appear as though the Reserve Bank of India is starting to ask the correct questions of these fintech organizations when it comes to data. They are trying to get a better handle and control on what consumer data is being collected, how it is being used, and where it is being distributed after it’s been received. All of these questions are something that all countries and financial institutions should consider as we continue to move forward in the digitization process of our financial institutions and payment providers.
On the other hand, it will also be interesting to see if this increased level of scrutiny hinders the Indian payment landscape as it makes a more significant push towards digital payments.