UPI payment charges explained: Why FinMin had to clarify there’s no move to levy fee

Less than a week after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) came out with a discussion paper seeking stakeholder views on charges in payment systems, the Finance Ministry Sunday clarified that there is “no consideration” in the government to levy any charges for Unified Payments Interface (UPI) services.

What did the RBI discussion paper say?

In a discussion paper released on Wednesday, the RBI had asked stakeholders if merchant discount rate (MDR), a fee paid by merchants to acquiring banks, should be brought back for UPI transactions. The RBI paper, seeking feedback on the fee structure for a range of digital payment services through a set of 40 questions, is open for comments till October 3.