No incentives left for banks to push digital pay, fears fintech

The government’s surprise decision to order banks to stop charging merchants for digital payments might hurt revenue of banks and payment companies make from processing such transactions and thereby discourage new merchant onboarding, according to industry executives.

A clutch of bankers and payment executives ET spoke to raised concerns that overall expansion of digital payments could be directly affected by this move.

“This will hurt payment companies and help large organised retail, and it might hur merchant onboar for banks,” said a senior bank on the condition of Banks like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India and Axis Bank have been leaders in providing card payment