The Reserve Bank of India has lifted a ban on American Express onboarding new card customers in the country after assessing that the US firm is now complying with data storage rules.
AmEx has been banned from onboarding new customers since last May for failing to meet rules introduced in 2018 that require all payment system providers store full end-to-end transaction details in systems only in India.
AmEx - along with Mastercard, Visa, American Express, PayPal, Amazon and the US government - lobbied against the rule when it was first introduced.
The firm has now demonstrated "satisfactory compliance" and the restrictions have been lifted with immediate effect.
Sanjay Khanna, interim CEO and COO, India, AmEx, says: "India is a key strategic market for American Express and today’s decision is the result of our significant local investments in technology, infrastructure, and resources."
The RBI lifted a similar ban on Mastercard in June.