Delhi HC seeks clarity from RBI on GPay operation

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the Reserve Bank of India as to how was GPay, Google's mobile payment app, facilitating financial transactions without its authorisation.

Hearing a public interest litigation, the bench headed by Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and comprising Justice A J Bhambhani, posed the query to RBI "How are they (GPay) operating without permission."

The bench was hearing a petition filed by Abhijit Mishra, who claimed that Google Pay (GPay) was operating as a payments system provider in violation of the Payments and Settlements Act as it had no valid authorisation from the central bank to carry out such functions.

The court issued notice to Reserve Bank of India and Google India seeking their stand on the issue raised in the plea by Mishra, who contended that GPay did not figure in the RBI's list of authorised 'payment systems operators' released on March 20, 2019. The court listed the matter for further hearing on April 29.

The petition sought a direction to RBI to order Google to "immediately" stop GPay's "unauthorised operation" in India.

No need for licence: Google

Reacting to this, the Google said: "Google Pay complies with all applicable legal requirements. Google Pay operates as a technology service provider to its partner banks, to allow for payments through the UPI infrastructure, and is not part of payment processing or settlement."

"There is no requirement for licensing of these services under the prevailing statutory and regulatory provisions. In order to support our partner banks, our efforts in complying with the government's data localisation norms are underway, and given the scale and complexity, we are being mindful to prioritise data security and uninterrupted services to our users as we make this transition. The central bank is apprised of the progress and we remain committed to complying with the laws of the land," Google spokesperson said.