Assurance · Regulated Payments

RBI cyber resilience for payment operators — compliant, audited, assured.

The RBI Master Directions on Cyber Resilience and Digital Payment Security Controls for non-bank Payment System Operators (2026) raise the bar for every PSO. Srida IT maps every control area to independent assessment, remediation and assurance — so you meet the Directions and can prove it.

The core obligations

01Board-approved IS policy + Cyber Crisis Management Plan (CCMP)
02A CISO / senior executive owning cyber resilience
03Annual system audit; VA/PT before every deployment
04Cyber incidents reported to RBI within 6 hours (and to CERT-In)
05PCI-DSS, an ISMS, vendor assurance, BCP/DR in a separate seismic zone

In effect now for Large & Medium non-bank PSOs; for Small PSOs from 1 April 2028.

Who must comply

Every authorised non-bank Payment System Operator.

Payment gateways, PPI issuers, white-label ATM operators, card networks, aggregators, TReDS and Bharat Bill Payment operators — and the unregulated partners in their ecosystem, by mutual agreement. The Directions consolidate RBI’s earlier circulars (ATM Switch ASPs, system audit scope) into one reference, with board-level accountability and hard deadlines such as 6-hour incident reporting.

Requirement → capability

Every control area in the Direction — covered.

Almost everything the Master Direction mandates maps directly to a service Srida IT already delivers.

System Audit of the PSO (Section V)

What RBI requires

Annual system audit of the payment system against the RBI-defined scope.

How Srida IT helps

System-audit readiness, gap assessment, evidence packs and remediation support.

Governance — IS policy, CCMP, CISO, KRIs/KPIs

What RBI requires

Board-approved IS policy & CCMP, a CISO/senior owner, monitored KRIs & KPIs.

How Srida IT helps

vCISO, IS-policy & governance framework, CCMP development, KRI/KPI design and board reporting.

Risk assessment & monitoring

What RBI requires

Cyber-risk assessment for new products/changes; IT assessment reports to the board.

How Srida IT helps

Cyber-risk assessments, pre-launch reviews and board-ready risk reporting.

ISMS & data security

What RBI requires

An ISMS on applicable standards; DLP; PII protection; encryption in transit & at rest.

How Srida IT helps

ISO/IEC 27001 ISMS build & internal audit; data protection; DPDPA & ISO/IEC 27701 privacy.

PCI-DSS (card data)

What RBI requires

PCI-DSS compliance & certification for stored card data.

How Srida IT helps

PCI DSS v4.0 readiness, gap assessment and remediation.

Security testing (VA/PT, source-code review)

What RBI requires

Annual authenticated VA/PT and source-code review; pre-deployment security audits.

How Srida IT helps

VAPT, source-code review and pre-deployment security assessments.

Network security, SOC & SIEM

What RBI requires

SOC monitoring, SIEM correlation, segmentation, boundary defences, anti-malware.

How Srida IT helps

SOC/SIEM advisory & design, network-security and segmentation review.

Secure SDLC & APIs

What RBI requires

Secure-by-design S-SDLC; multi-tier architecture; API authN/Z, integrity, availability.

How Srida IT helps

Secure-SDLC advisory, application & API security assessment, source-code/escrow guidance.

Vendor / third-party risk

What RBI requires

Vendor controls; independent auditor assurance on critical vendors' cyber resilience.

How Srida IT helps

Third-party risk assessments and independent vendor cyber-resilience assurance.

Incident response & reporting

What RBI requires

Board-approved IR; forensics; reporting to RBI within 6 hours and to CERT-In.

How Srida IT helps

IR plan & playbooks, forensic readiness, the RBI/CERT-In reporting process, IR retainer.

Business continuity & DR

What RBI requires

BCP on cyber scenarios; DR in a different seismic zone; near-zero RPO; half-yearly drills.

How Srida IT helps

BCP/DR programme (ISO 22301), RTO/RPO design and DR-drill facilitation.

Cloud security

What RBI requires

Cloud operation policy, data localisation, annual independent CSP audits.

How Srida IT helps

Cloud-security policy, CSP assurance and configuration review.

Patch & change management

What RBI requires

Documented patch/change lifecycle; emergency patching for critical vulnerabilities.

How Srida IT helps

Patch- & change-management SOPs and governance.

IAM & inventory

What RBI requires

Least-privilege IAM, MFA for privileged accounts, asset inventory & data-flow maps.

How Srida IT helps

IAM review & design, privileged-access controls, asset & data-flow mapping.

Digital payment security (mobile, card, PPI)

What RBI requires

Device binding, session security, fraud monitoring, MFA, masked/secure alerts.

How Srida IT helps

Digital-payment control review, fraud-monitoring and transaction-security advisory.

Awareness & board sensitisation

What RBI requires

Periodic staff awareness; board & senior-management sensitisation.

How Srida IT helps

Srida IT Academy — awareness programmes and board/executive briefings.

ATM Switch ASP controls (Section VI)

What RBI requires

Cyber-security controls for third-party ATM Switch Application Service Providers.

How Srida IT helps

ATM Switch ASP security assessment and control review.

How we engage

Assess → Remediate → Assure → Sustain.

01

Assess

A gap assessment of your environment against every control area of the Master Direction, with a prioritised, board-ready remediation roadmap.

02

Remediate

Build the missing pieces — IS policy, CCMP, ISMS, IR & BCP/DR, IAM, logging, PCI/ISMS controls — and close VA/PT findings.

03

Assure

Independent testing (VA/PT), vendor assurance and system-audit readiness, so you can face the formal RBI system audit with confidence.

04

Sustain

Continuous GRC assurance between audits, an incident-response retainer, and ongoing KRI/KPI reporting to the board.

Why Srida IT

Independent & end-to-end

An audit & assurance firm with security, GRC and privacy under one roof — assessment, remediation and independent assurance, not just advice.

Framework depth

ISO/IEC 27001, PCI DSS v4.0, DPDPA, ISO/IEC 27701, NIST CSF — backed by detailed in-house requirements & testing procedures for each.

Board-ready outputs

Gap assessments, prioritised roadmaps, evidence packs and KRI/KPI reporting your Board sub-committee can act on.

Ready for the RBI Master Direction?

Start with a readiness assessment — we’ll map your current posture against every control area and give you a prioritised path to compliance.

Srida IT provides assessment, remediation and independent assurance to help PSOs meet these Directions. Where the formal system audit must be performed by a CERT-In-empanelled auditor, we prepare and support your audit and remediation. References to standards and regulations are to the respective issuing bodies.