The information here is intended to supplement Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regulations, and should not be taken as legal advice. It is subject to change in light of updates to the regulations.
The regulations described on this page apply if you process payments with local acquiring in India. They do not apply to cross-border payments.
If you want to start processing payments locally in India, you must:
- Have a local entity in India.
- Contact your Adyen account manager to complete the onboarding process for India.
- Create a separate company account for your business in India.
- Comply with regulations from the RBI surrounding the storage of payment data and recurring payments.
The following table shows which regulations apply to which types of payments.
| Regulation | Applies to | recurringProcessingModel |
shopperInteraction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Storing card details | All merchants processing card payments locally in India. | All card payments, including non-recurring payments. | All |
| CardOnFile payments | Merchants processing one-off payments locally in India using a shopper's saved payment details. | CardOnFile | Ecommerce, ContAuth |
| Recurring payments | Merchants processing recurring payments locally in India, on a fixed or non-fixed schedule. | Subscription, UnscheduledCardOnFile | Ecommerce, ContAuth |
Storing card details
According to the RBI regulations on storing card details you are only allowed to store the following card details for transaction tracking and reconciliation purposes:
- The last four digits of the card number
- The name of the card issuer
You cannot store any other card details in India.
Because you can only store limited card details, the following details are redacted in reports:
| Report name | Columns affected |
|---|---|
| 3D Secure Authentication | BIN |
| 3D Secure Conversion | BIN |
| 3D Secure Conversion | Issuer ID, Shopper Name |
| Dispute transaction details report (Multiday) | Issuer ID, Shopper Name |
| Interactive payment accounting | Card Number |
| Interactive payment accounting (Essentials) | Card Number |
| Received payment details | Issuer Id |
| External settlement detail | Card BIN |
CardOnFile payments
You can accept CardOnFile payments for one-off payments where a shopper can either store their payment details or pay in your website or app using their saved payment details. These payments use the CardOnFile recurring processing model.
You must comply with the regulations allowing only authorised card networks to tokenize cards.
Recurring payments
Regulations on recurring card payments in India require you to notify the shopper before you charge their card with a recurring payment.
You can accept the following kinds of recurring card payments, and recurring UPI payments:
- Subscriptions: A recurring payment made at regular intervals for a product or a service. These payments use the Subscription recurring processing model.
- Automatic top-ups: Contracts that occur on a non-fixed schedule using stored payment details. This includes automatic top-ups when the shopper's balance drops below a certain amount. These payments use the UnscheduledCardOnFile recurring processing model.
To accept recurring payments in India, you need to perform some extra steps:
- You provide information about the shopper's billing plan in the payment request.
- Based on this information, the shopper authenticates a transaction to create a mandate with their issuer.
- Using the mandate details, you send the shopper a pre-debit notification before you charge them.
- After a cooling period of 48 hours, you can charge your shopper.
See the pages for recurring card payments in India and recurring UPI payments for instructions on how to implement these requirements.
Payment methods
In addition to cards from India, the following local payment methods require that you process locally in India: