RBI extends timelines for compliance with various payment systems requirements

The RBI has released several notifications in relation to payment systems for compliance purposes. These notifications included the following:

  1. Enhancement of security card transactions;
  2. Issuance and operations of Prepaid Payment Instruments ("PPI"); and
  3. Guidelines regulating payment aggregators and payment gateways.

The RBI through a notification dated June 04, 2020, decided to extend the timelines for compliance by payment systems due to the COVID-19 situation. Details of the extensions are provided below:

  1. Prior to this notification, all non-bank PPI issuers were expected to comply with the minimum positive net worth requirement of INR 15 crores for the financial position as on March 31, 2020. This has been revised to financial position as on September 30, 2020. Further, all authorised non-bank entities were required to submit a System Audit Report including cyber security audit conducted by CERT-IN empaneled auditors, by August 31, 2020. This has been revised to October 31, 2020.
  2. The timelines for implementing provisions of circular on "Enhancing Security of Card Transactions" has been extended from March 24, 2020 to December 31, 2020.
  3. Under the guidelines on regulation of payment aggregators and gateways, for activities where no specific timelines were mentioned in the guidelines, the RBI stated that the effective date of such activities would be April 01, 2020. This has now been revised to September 30, 2020

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