Google Launches Changes for Automatic Payments in India After RBI Rules

Google will not save customer card details like card number and expiry date after the latest RBI rules.

(Photo: IANS)

As per latest reports, Google has announced that from 1 January 2022, the platform will not be able to save customer card details like card number and expiry date in the current format.

This announcement has come in because Google has to comply with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s guidelines for Payment Aggregators (PA) and Payment Gateways (PG).

The change however is significant, because several users save their card number to their Google Work account or Google Play account to make monthly payments for subscription-based services.

This change is also attributed to the RBI's new card storage regulations. According to latest reports, the RBI has directed that no entity or merchant, other than card issuers and card networks, should store card details or card on file (CoF) from 1 January 2022.

Alongside this, the RBI has also extended tokenisation of CoF by card issuers.

The official notification released by RBI reads as follows, “With effect from January 1, 2022, no entity in the card transaction or payment chain, other than the card issuers and card networks, should store the actual card data. Any such data stored previously will be purged,” the RBI had said in a circular. The new rules have also meant that many users have seen their monthly recurring payments get declined or cancelled.

The new guidelines have caused a lot of confusion for many businesses and enterprises. It is no secret that these new regulations will pose additional problems to users who had their card information saved on Google in order to pay for their Google One subscription or their Google Cloud work accounts.

Nonetheless, as a consolation, Google has announced that with the users' authorisation, users can save the “card details in a format that complies with RBI regulations and keeps sensitive card details secure.”

Read on to find out what users have to do in order to ensure that their card information does not get deleted.

How To Save Card Information on Google Post 31 December 2021

• According to Google, if a user wants to continue using the same Visa or Mastercard issued debit or credit card to make payments after 31 December 2021, they will be required to re-enter their card details and must make at least one purchase or manual payment before the end of 2021.

• If any user fails to do so, their card will no longer appear in their account and they will have to re-enter their card details to use it again.

• On the other hand, for RuPay, American Express, Discover, or Diners Card users, the company has announced that they will not store the user's card information post 31 December 2021, as card storage as per the new format isn’t supported for these card networks yet.

• By 1 January 2022, users must provide card details every time they make a manual payment.