Credit, Debit Card New Rules Latest Update: Here comes big news for credit and debit card holders. From July 1 onwards, the online merchants will not be able to store customers’ card data. As per the RBI guidelines, these card tokenization rules will come into effect from July 1, 2022. 

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last year issued debit and credit card tokenization rules, keeping in mind customer safety. Under the rules, merchants were barred from storing customer card data in their servers.

These card tokenization rules will now come into effect from July 1, 2022.

What is Debit Card, Credit Card Tokenisation?

By this time, you would have received notifications from online merchants and banks to ‘tokenize’ your cards to smoothly carry out payments. According to the RBI website, “Tokenisation refers to the replacement of actual card details with an alternate code called the “token”, which shall be unique for a combination of card, token requestor (i.e. the entity which accepts the request from the customer for tokenization of a card and passes it on to the card network to issue a corresponding token) and device (referred hereafter as “identified device”).”

Credit card and debit card tokenization can be done by following these simple steps:

Step 1: Go to your favorite or most frequently used online website or mobile application to purchase items including food, grocery, or clothes, and then initiate a transaction.

Step 2: When it leads to the checkout page, select the credit card or debit card payment option. Now provide the CVV details.

Step 3: Click on the option that says “Secure your card” or “Save card as per RBI guidelines”

Step 4: Click on save and enter the OTP received on your mobile number.

Step 5: Your credit or debit card is now successfully tokenized and is secured. Merchants will not be able to access your information anymore.

What Happens if You Do Not Tokenise Your Card?

The debit card and credit card tokenization process is not mandatory and a customer can choose whether or not to let his / her card be tokenized. In that case, the customer will have to re-enter all card details while purchasing anything online

Credit Card, Debit Card Tokenisation: Other Details

The tokenization system is totally free of charge and is not mandatory as well. However, it does provide a smoother payment experience while also securing your data. Tokenisation is only applicable to domestic online transactions.

The registration for a tokenization request is done only with explicit customer consent through Additional Factor of Authentication (AFA), and not by way of a forced / default / automatic selection of check box, radio button, etc, as per the RBI. The customer will also be given the choice of selecting the use case and setting-up up limits.