Startups and digital platforms have urged the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to extend at least six months from the December 31, 2021 deadline for the tokenisation of credit and debit cards. Members of the Merchant Payments Alliance of India (MPAI) include digital platforms like Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, Spotify, Zoom, Microsoft, Policybazaar, etc. The Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF) is a think tank for India’s startups and has 470 members.

Tokenisation replaces credit and debit card details with a code called ‘token’. RBI’s guidelines for payment gateways (PGs) and payment aggregators (PAs) says that PAs and merchants should not store the card credentials of customers in their database from January 1, 2022.

In the absence of an alternative, customers can use their credit or debit cards. Still, they will have to enter their details afresh for each transaction, including their 16-digit card number, card expiry date and card verification value (CVV). Startups and digital platforms have also desired the new order and awareness about the impact of the policy change. In their letter to the RBI, they have underlined that regulated entities are not ready without a challenging mandate to comply.