Mastercard Inc. can now onboard new customers in India after the country’s central bank lifted restrictions that had been imposed upon the company last summer.
The Reserve Bank of India said Thursday that it would be lifting the limits on Mastercard MA, -5.61% as the payments giant demonstrated “satisfactory compliance” with the country’s rules around the storage of payments data.
“We welcome and are grateful for today’s decision by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), enabling us to resume onboarding of new domestic customers (debit, credit and prepaid) onto our card network in the country with immediate effect,” a Mastercard spokesperson said in a statement. “As we have in our engagement with the RBI, we reaffirm our commitment to support the digital needs of India, its people and its businesses.”
Mastercard added that it will continue “to ensure ongoing delivery against the goals and regulatory requirements that have been established” and continue to “invest in the country’s future.”
Despite the regulatory achievement in India, Mastercard shares are off 5.3% in Thursday afternoon trading and heading toward their worst day in more than a month amid broad-market weakness. The S&P 500 SPX, -3.52% is off about 120 points, or 3.2%, in Thursday’s session.