Google Pay app agrees to store customers' payments data locally in India

Google Pay is currently in the process of complying with the regulations of data localisation. Google Pay director of product management Sharath Bulusu said at the launch of 'Google Pay for merchants' in Kolkata. Google Pay is Google's digital payments app that facilitates UPI-enabled payment transactions. Bulusu said the process to comply with the regulations of data localisation needs to be carried out "carefully to prevent any disruption."

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Google Pay Data Localisation

"We will comply with all directives of the government. We are in the process of doing so," he told reporters.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had asked payment companies to ensure that the transaction's data are stored exclusively on local servers. Data localisation refers to storing data within India.

"We have been providing services and the regulations came later. We will do it without interrupting services to 67 million users. Technically, it is not that easy. However, RBI is very supportive," Bulusu said.

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In India, around 3.5 lakh brick-and-mortar retail stores are registered with Google Pay's platform whereas about 3,000 online merchants are accepting payments through the Google Pay app. As on September 2019, the total transaction for the last 12 months was at $110 billion and the number of active users rose three times to 67 million, Bulusu said, adding that "almost two-thirds of the payments happened outside top seven cities" in the country.

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At present, charges or MDR (merchant discount rate) are not imposed on merchants and users in order to promote digital payment in the country, he said. MDR is the rate charged to a merchant for payment processing services. Asked whether the company will charge users for payments to generate revenue, Bulusu said, there are multiple options that would be evaluated at an appropriate time in future.

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(With PTI inputs)