Govt may consider 0.3% uniform fee to maintain UPI payment system and ensure financial viability: Report

The government may consider a 0.3 per cent uniform digital payment facilitation fee to fund the infrastructure required for such transactions and also to ensure financial viability of the UPI payment system, suggested a study by IIT Bombay.

The facilitation fee of 0.3 per cent can generate around Rs 5,000 crore in 2023-24, said the study titled ‘Charges for PPI-based UPI payments–The Deception’.

The study, which analyses the impact of the decision of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to introduce interchange fee on payments through mobile wallets, argued that the payments received by merchants should remain ‘unpolluted’ whether they are from UPI directly or through prepaid e-wallets.