To resolve a row with MasterCard, Visa and American Express over the localisation of such information, the government said that the Foreign payment firms will be allowed to keep copies of customer data in India while they can retain offshore storage operations.

The central bank took a decision in this regard in April saying that all payments data is required to be stored only in the country for a period of six months for “unfettered supervisory access” has led to furious lobbying by global firms that worry it would cost them millions of dollars.

The Economic Affairs Secretary SC Garg of India, during a meeting with officials of the Reserve Bank of India and executives from the payment firms, said that retaining data copies in the country seems to be a possible solution.

“One of the options which emerged in that meeting was maybe mirror copies might be a potential solution,” Garg told Reuters in an interview on Saturday.

He also said that the Reserve Bank of India is required to take a decision to finalize the matter but keeping of mirror images of the data in India would convey the meaning that all the customer information would be available to local authorities.

The directive from RBI comes at a time when more people in India are switching to plastic, as was as aimed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi government decision to replace high value currency notes back in November 2016. It was after this move that the government has aggressively discourages cash transactions.

Back in March, Indians’ transactions made up to worth USD 52 billion (approx.. Rs. 3.57 lakhs crores) and all these transactions were doen using 900 million credit and debit cards which is almost the double amount recorded during November 2016 as per the data from the RBI.

But the issue of rising fraud too is a big concern. In April, the RBI said that the payment ecosystem in India had considerable expanded turning it into necessary requirement to ensure the safety and security of data.

As per the statement given by Garg, the government was trying to find a consensus over the issue of data localization at a time of heightened scrutiny of whether how the global companies handle their customers’ privacy data.

“What we do is we listen to different stakeholders, what they say, what their stance is and where can we can find a landing zone … That is the reason why it was suggested to have mirror copies,” he said.

Earlier, reuters reported that India’s finance ministry has already proposed relaxing the RBI’s directive following several weeks of intense lobbying by US companies and trade bodies.

During the meeting held in June, representatives from US lobby group US-India Business Council (USIBC) asserted that storing the data exclusively in India would become a security risk, as in the event of a natural disaster no-one would be able to have access to it if it was all stored in one place.

Garg said India’s earlier strong economic and fiscal performance warranted a sovereign rating upgrade by leading rating agencies worldwide, including Standard & Poor’s, and reiterated that the economy was on course to achieve its 3.3 percent fiscal deficit target for 2018/19.

“Of course we would want an upgrade. There is no question. Everything (economically) is strong,” he said adding that S&P might assess India’s sovereign rating next month.

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