RBI Lifts Ban On MasterCard, Allowing It To Onboard New Customers

MasterCard, which is one of the major credit card networks in India, can now onboard new customers as the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) has finally lifted the ban on it. After a long period of 11 months of the ban, RBI has come up with this decision which can be considered beneficial for a lot of credit card issuers as well as individuals who were looking to have a credit card on the MasterCard network.

RBI Lifts MasterCard Ban for New Customer Onboarding

In July 2021, RBI imposed a drastic restriction on MasterCard, prohibiting the card network from issuing new credit cards in India. However, individuals having old cards on the MasterCard network could still use them without any difficulties, but card issuers who had most of their cards on the MasterCard network were not able to onboard new customers. This is how the ban affected the card network and the card issuers as well.

“In view of the satisfactory compliance demonstrated by Mastercard Asia / Pacific Pte. Ltd. with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular dated April 6, 2018 on Storage of Payment System Data, the restrictions imposed, vide order dated July 14, 2021, on on-boarding of new domestic customers have been lifted with immediate effect.“- RBI Mentioned in the press release

Also Read: RBI lifts all the restrictions on HDFC Bank.

Now, as the ban has been lifted, card issuers will be able to issue new credit cards on the MasterCard platform again. We can also expect new partnerships between card issuers and MasterCard to launch new credit cards or old cards on the MasterCard network. RBI had also banned Diners Club International & American Express from onboarding new customers, but the ban on Diners Club was lifted in November 2021, while the restriction on AmEx still continues in the country.