RBI extends card tokenization deadline by 6 months

The RBI extended the card on file tokenization deadline by six months to June 30, 2022 in a view of various representations received from industry bodies.

Card of file, or CoF, refers to card information stored by payment gateway and merchants to process future transactions. The earlier date was Dec 31, 2021.

RBI said in a notification addressed to all payment system providers and payment system participants, “In light of various representations received in this regard, we advise the timeline for storing of CoF data is extended by six months till June 30, 2022 and post this, such data shall be purged”.

In addition to tokenization it said, “Industry stakeholders may devise alternate mechanism to handle use case or post transaction activity that currently involves storage of CoF data by entities other than card issuers and card networks”.

Under tokenization services, a unique alternative code is generated to facilitate transactions through cards.

The RBI prohibited merchants from storing client card details on their serves with effect from Jan 1, 2022, and mandated the adoption of CoF tokenization as an alternative to card storage.