Similar actions were taken against American Express and Diners Club in the past due to non-compliance with the RBI's directives. RBL Bank Ltd said on Thursday that it would start issuing cards on the Visa network, a day after the Reserve Bank of India ordered banks to stop issuing credit cards on its rival Mastercard's network, as the latter hadn't fully complied with a 2018 data localisation order. In a disclosure to exchanges obtained from the Bombay Stock Exchange that was first reported by CNBC-TV18, RBL said that it had struck a deal with Visa on the very same day that the RBI announced a freeze on credit card issuances from Mastercard. RBL said: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed restrictions yesterday on Mastercard Asia / Pacific Pte. Ltd. (Mastercard) from on-boarding new domestic customers (debit, credit or prepaid) onto its card network from July 22, 2021. We await further information from Mastercard on RBI’s supervisory action. RBL Bank currently issues credit cards on the Mastercard network only. The debit and prepaid cards issued by the Bank are already enabled on other payment networks in addition to the Mastercard network. Separately, RBL Bank Limited(“RBL Bank”) has entered into an agreement with Visa Worldwide Pte. Limited (“Visa”) yesterday to issue credit cards enabled on the Visa payment network. RBL Bank expects to start issuance of credit cards on the Visa payment network post the technology integration which is expected to take 8 to 10 weeks. RBL noted that its monthly…
