Firstly, let’s focus on the main objective of the RBI guidelines: ‘All the digital payment companies were mandated to store all user-related data only in Indian servers so as to secure the data in case of a security breach.’
The National payments corporation of India (NPCI) has stated that Whatsapp’s move of mirroring data will not be sufficient to comply with RBI’s defined guideline.
Despite the team of Whatsapp stating that they have built a system to store all user data, they did not specify whether it will be stored only in the Indian servers and this has led to a doubt in the minds of NCPI.
Whatsapp on average accounts for 200 million-plus users across India. When Whatsapp pay came into being, it faced ongoing troubles regarding this certain RBI rule.
Hence, the condition laid down was that Whatsapp first had to recruit a team in India to proceed with the establishment of Whatsapp pay, following which the CEO of Whatsapp Mr. Chris Daniels set up a meeting with KT Rama Rao regarding establishing an office in Hyderabad.
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While a group of payment companies such as Visa, Mastercard, and others hoped that their data localization permission deadline had been extended, Whatsapp announced their plan of Data localization a week earlier in hopes of getting approval.
Once again, their initiative clashed with the RBI’s stated rules and hence their plan was rejected. Despite the existent troubles Whatsapp is facing, the spreading of fake news via Whatsapp is now becoming an increasing source of worry for the entire Whatsapp team and they are trying their best to curb this spread of fake news and avoid any further upcoming problems.
Whatsapp as a messenger has become increasingly popular especially in India and with such a large number of the population using it, Whatsapp can only try to ensure they come up with a solution to meet RBI’s guidelines fast and keep the messenger functional and avoid any upcoming errors.