Bid to boost digital payment

A high-level RBI panel on digital payments wants the government to extend its policy to refund the merchant discount rate (MDR) for all transactions below Rs 2,000 by another two years and reduce the import duty on POS (point of sale) machines to zero.

Headed by former Infosys chief and Aadhaar architect Nandan Nilekani, the panel said the number of digital transactions per person has risen 10 times in five years, and the target was to raise the number by another 10 times in three years only.

It suggested a shift from high value, low volume and high cost transactions to low value, high volume and low cost transactions. The panel had submitted its report to the RBI on May 17.