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India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

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Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#21

Post by rjzzleep »

ntrz wrote: post #6
sudhirj wrote: post #4

I can't make out if these rules are specific to India. Doesn't the EU have the same data residency rules as well? Why are Mastercard and Amex struggling with this?

The Indian rule seems to require all data be stored strictly inside India, without any of it being stored outside the country. The EU permits data to be transferred outside the EU under a number of circumstances: e.g. if the other country has equivalent data protection laws, if the non-EU company you're transferring the data to has promised to abide by the EU rules, stuff like that. Take this with a grain of salt, of…

Actually the European courts struck down Privacy Shield. So any company transferring data to the US is doing it illegally. Plenty of active lawsuits against google. But as much as HN likes to bash google, people here are pretty submissive when one is asking for advice on legal options against these companies.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53418898

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#22

Post by jessedhillon »

seunosewa wrote: post #18
frabcus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was running a large country, I'd want transactions to be entirely local for national security reasons. Generally, in the event of a world war, I wouldn't want it to be trivial for other countries to remotely cut off my whole economy.

How about just avoiding wars? Global interdependence of countries is beneficial for this reason. Also, India's military is no match for and unlikely to have any reason to fight the external countries where MasterCard's data is likely to be stored (US, UK, etc).

In the case of MasterCard that might be true, but the law applies generally. It's not inconceivable that another piece of critical infrastructure could be provided by a country who has a data center in a more likely adversary, say, China. In general, the Indian approach is not to whitelist everything and then blacklist whatever specific exceptions become necessary, but the reverse.

As for avoiding war: sure, but how should we conduct things until utopia arrives?

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#23

Post by ntrz »

rjzzleep wrote: post #21
ntrz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Indian rule seems to require all data be stored strictly inside India, without any of it being stored outside the country. The EU permits data to be transferred outside the EU under a number of circumstances: e.g. if the other country has equivalent data protection laws, if the non-EU company you're transferring the data to has promised to abide by the EU rules, stuff like that. Take this with a grain of salt, of…

Actually the European courts struck down Privacy Shield. So any company transferring data to the US is doing it illegally. Plenty of active lawsuits against google. But as much as HN likes to bash google, people here are pretty submissive when one is asking for advice on legal options against these companies. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53418898

As far as I know it's still possible to transfer data from the EU to the US under the GDPR if the companies involved have signed a ``standard contractual clause''[0] (the article says this was also a target of the Privacy Shield suit but the courts chose to continue to allow it).

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/inte...

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#24

Post by ncallaway »

seunosewa wrote: post #18
frabcus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was running a large country, I'd want transactions to be entirely local for national security reasons. Generally, in the event of a world war, I wouldn't want it to be trivial for other countries to remotely cut off my whole economy.

How about just avoiding wars? Global interdependence of countries is beneficial for this reason. Also, India's military is no match for and unlikely to have any reason to fight the external countries where MasterCard's data is likely to be stored (US, UK, etc).

> How about just avoiding wars?

Countries simply do not have the unilateral ability to avoid wars.

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#26

Post by IshKebab »

mtmail wrote: post #12
obiwanpallav1 wrote: post #7

What are/was the effects of GDPR in EU? Also, did it lead to a huge increase in the spendings for MasterCard?

I'd imagine a bigger loss for MasterCard was the EU capping their interchange fees to 0.3% with a regulation in 2015. "At present, credit card interchange fees in the UK are typically around 0.85% per transaction" ( https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/27/cap-on-card-fe... ). After Brexit MasterCard will increase it to 1.5% ( https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/jan/25/mastercard-to-... ) Loosing out on 0.55%…

I agree that will have a bigger effect, and boo Brexit. But it's actually only transactions on EU shops by UK cards that face higher fees, which is a really small percentage of purchases. Definitely not every transaction.

I'm sure they'll raise the other fees later though. Probably just dipping their toes.

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#27

Post by addicted »

ntrz wrote: post #5

So, the reason is that the entirety of the customer data must be stored locally in India, rather than on a server located elsewhere[0]? Does anyone know why the rule in India is so much stricter than the equivalent GDPR rule[1], which allows transfer of data outside the EU in various circumstances (basically if it's assured that it won't lead to the data being subject to much laxer standards of protection)? According…

The GDPR didn’t give a 6 month timeline.

And GDPR had a long transparent process that in addition to the official implementation time, gave companies a lot of time to see what sort of rules they would likely be working under even before it was approved.

The worst government since liberalization, however, makes capricious rules, without input or deliberations, drops them on the world like they are a JayZ album, and then gives atrocious timelines for compliance.

More often than not they will then backtrack on those rules once enough time has passed so people will forget how atrocious those rules are (like during COVID), or in some cases (such as demonetization), they will double down never mind the generational economic damage and direct death toll.

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#28

Post by kspacewalk2 »

The obsession with where data physically sits at rest is so amusing to me. Not limited to overzealous governments and financial data; healthcare is singularly obsessed with this. It makes no sense whatsoever, of course. I'd much rather store properly encrypted personal information or financial data in North Korea than storing it unencrypted in my home country.

I would understand if they demanded both storage and processing be done in India. Then it's just about control, and the ability to sever MC's India operations from the mother ship in case things go really sour and the US tries to cut India off from the global financial system or something. But since it's just about data at rest, it's nonsensical.

Or am I missing something?

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#29

Post by pavs »

debacle wrote: post #17

It is good to see India growing as a world power as the largest democracy in the world.

They have been "growing" and "becoming" the next world leader for a while now.

Anyone who have lived in india long enough will tell you how far from the truth this is.

The only Stick India has, besides their nuclear arsenal, is the size of their domestic market (aka population). I dont think the purchasing power of their domestic market is that lucrative compare to actual superpowers (Economic or Military). Buy just large enough for International companies to bother to invest.

The whole political platform for Modi is religious fanaticism, nationalosm and jingoism. Any sane, rational Indian leader would not be so Anti international investment. (I am not only talking about the incident mentioned in this article, but generally speaking).

If you can look past the billionaires and the prosperous cities of India (however few), it eirily feels like the whole country is for most part still stuck in the 80s.

Most people tout india as the largest democracy with diverse relious population. The reality on the ground could not have been farther from truth.

In reality the country feels like its always in the state of experiment by their political leaders, competing with each other to find the best way to fuck things up without actually blowing up the country. Yet.

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#30

Post by herbst »

sudhirj wrote: post #4

I can't make out if these rules are specific to India. Doesn't the EU have the same data residency rules as well? Why are Mastercard and Amex struggling with this?

It's not a non issue either. Several countries already use different systems that do not depend on US credit card companies anymore. Not because it is banned, but because it obviously is a suboptimal solution.
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