RBI extends deadline for card tokenisation till 30 Sept

The Reserve Bank of India on Friday extended the timeline for tokenisation of debit and credit cards by another three months till September 30, 2022. In a statement, RBI said this extended time period may be utilised by the industry for, facilitating all stakeholders to be ready for handling tokenised transactions; processing transactions based on tokens; implementing an alternate mechanism to handle all post-transaction activities related to guest checkout transactions, that currently involve /require storage of CoF data by entities other than card issuers and card networks; and creating public awareness about the process of creating tokens and using them to undertake transactions. At present, many entities including merchants, involved in an online card transaction chain store card data like card number, expiry date, etc. Thereby, last year in December, RBI mandated entities other than card networks and card issuers to not store debit or credit card data with them. Under the framework, RBI directs cardholders can create “tokens” in lieu of card details; these tokens can then be stored by the merchants for processing transactions in the future.