PayPal mulls data localisation for India, sets up tech centre

American digital payments player PayPal is working with its partners on localisation of data as mandated by the Reserve Bank of India, said Guru Bhat, Vice President and Head (Engineering) of PayPal India.

"As part of our operating setup in India, we work with a lot of partners and we are working with them with the proposal right now on how to enable this for the country," he said when asked if Paypal is considering 'data localisation' as mandated by the RBI.

The RBI had, in April last year, asked payment firms to ensure their data were stored exclusively on local servers, setting a tight six-month deadline for compliance.

That deadline was said to have been missed by some foreign firms including credit card giants Visa and Mastercard.

International giants usually store data on global servers and the requirement to store data locally would require them to make an additional investment.

But policymakers in India believe storing data locally would help monitor and conduct investigations if the need arises.

"In all the markets that we are prevalent or operative, our intent is to have platform that is compliant across all those platforms. So we have the same approach for India and all the laws of the land we will comply," Bhat further said.

Also, PayPal announced an expansion of its presence in India with the launch of its third global technology centre in Hyderabad.

The expansion follows the acquisition of fraud prevention platform Simility in 2018, the official said.

The Hyderabad centre would focus on leveraging PayPal's extensive expertise in data science, risk management, and machine learning to empower small and medium-sized businesses to identify and protect themselves from fraud.

"India is a key growth market for PayPal and the opening of our global technology centre in Hyderabad, the heart of innovation and technology in India, marks a significant milestone on our journey," Bhat said.

The Hyderabad location would be PayPal's third technology centre in India after Chennai and Bengaluru, and the centre would house approximately 100 engineers across roles, including risk management and operations, to provide cutting-edge digital payments solutions to customers around the world.

PayPal currently has an employee base of about 3,500 in all the three tech centres in India.

(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)

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