Visa, Mastercard and American Express have failed to meet the Government of India’s data localisation deadline, which ended on 15 October 2018.

The government and the country’s central bank (RBI) potentially won’t extend the deadline to store payments data locally.

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Issued in April, the new regulation mandated payments companies to store all information related to their transactions made by Indians only on computers in the country.

Companies such as Google and WhatsApp were also required to store their payments-related business data locally.

More than 60 companies have complied with the directive but some firms reportedly sought extension. These companies requested more time saying their data processing systems are distributed on machines across the world.

Since they could not redesign to work in India alone within the given timeframe, the firms offered to store copies of the data in the country. However, the RBI has rejected the data mirroring alternative.

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Sources from the industry told The Telegraph that the central bank will consider any genuine reasons due to which the companies could not meet the deadline.

The publication quoted unnamed sources as saying: “They have been told to report to the RBI on the steps they are taking to meet the data localisation requirement. The RBI is ascertaining whether the delay was due to genuine difficulty.

“The central bank is not condemning such firms to the guillotine. If there is some genuine reason, they are likely to be given more time.”