Bad News for Google Pay Users: Platform begins charging convenience fee for THESE services

Google Pay, one of the most popular digital payment platforms in India, has made a big change by charging users who have been using the platform for free up until now for low-value transactions a convenience fee for paying gas and electricity bills, according to a report by the Economic Times. GPay, the UPI platform, has not commented on the situation, and this has not yet been formally confirmed.

In addition to the applicable Goods and Services Tax (GST), the recently implemented fee, according to Google Pay’s website, ranges from 0.5% to 1% of the transaction value. Direct transactions done using bank accounts connected to UPI, however, are unaffected.

The modification comes after Google Pay decided more than a year ago to charge a Rs 3 convenience fee for mobile recharges.
 
According to the ET report, a customer paid his electricity bill with a credit card and was charged Rs 15 as a “convenience fee.” This charge, which also included GST, was referred to as a “processing fee for debit and credit card transactions.”

According to a source cited in the report, GPay’s decision to charge platform fees for bill payments will mark a significant shift in the company’s strategy to monetise UPI transactions at a time when service providers are also trying to find ways to reduce the expenses associated with payment processing.

Since many fintech companies are attempting to pass on transaction expenses to their clients, platform fees are gradually becoming the norm.  Although it’s unclear when this adjustment began, Google Pay’s website states that this fee helps defray the expenses of processing card payments.