Razorpay launches 'TokenHQ' card in partnership with Mastercard, RuPay and Visa

Razorpay | Representative image

In a bid to help millions of Indian businesses comply with the new RBI guidelines -- ensuring full compliance with the tokenisation framework -- Razorpay has announced the launch of ‘Razorpay TokenHQ’.

Razorpay TokenHQ is aimed at helping end-customers to continue experiencing the convenience of saved card transactions. This is a multi-network Card-on-File (CoF) Tokenisation solution which works across all major card networks including Mastercard, RuPay, and Visa. Using Razorpay’s services, almost the entire base of five million businesses will be ready to support tokenised card transactions.

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Earlier, Reserve Bank had issued a new set of guidelines, disallowing businesses, payment aggregators, and acquiring banks, from storing customers’ credit, debit or prepaid card information.

Under the new RBI rules, only card networks and card issuers are allowed to store customer card information, and sanctions businesses to use tokens for offering saved card experience during online payments.

The new Card-On-File (COF) tokenisation is the process of turning sensitive cardholder data into a string of randomly generated numbers called a 'token', which has no meaningful value if breached. The RBI had mandated that all stakeholders are required to ensure full compliance with the tokenisation framework by December 31, 2021.

To safeguards consumer interests, RBI has issued rules for card tokenisation framework, ensuring that a customer’s card information rests only with the customer, the card network, and the issuing bank. This minimises the risk of card data leaks.

"Newer (RBI) regulations offer tremendous opportunities for us to innovate and develop localised solutions that work well for Indian businesses. Tokenisation is one such regulatory development, and Razorpay TokenHQ is a homegrown solution that will enable businesses to continue to offer seamless payments while ensuring individuals have control over their card data. India’s First Multi-Network tokenisation solution, ‘TokenHQ’, will work across all major card networks, thus enabling every business in India to tokenise customer card information,” Razorpay's CTO & Co-Founder Shashank Kumar said.

With TokenHQ, Razorpay believes that businesses would be able to create, process, delete and modify tokens for online card payments with customers’ consent. The firm further added that merchants with customised setups can start integrating Razorpay TokenHQ immediately via their developer friendly APIs.