Now Reading: Government denies plan to charge UPI users after viral alarm
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Government denies plan to charge UPI users after viral alarm
The government has categorically denied plans to levy charges on UPI payments such as PhonePe and Google Pay, after a viral video and social media posts claimed users would soon pay a…
The government has categorically denied plans to levy charges on UPI payments such as PhonePe and Google Pay, after a viral video and social media posts claimed users would soon pay a fee per transaction. The Ministry of Finance clarified in a press release that no such proposal is under consideration and that UPI remains a free, digital public good for all Indians.
The misinformation spread rapidly on WhatsApp and YouTube, prompting the ministry to issue a fact-check. The statement underlined that neither the RBI nor the government has mandated any new fee structure for UPI transactions, including the popular peer-to-peer (P2P) and merchant payments processed through apps like Bhim, Paytm, and PhonePe.
The clarification comes weeks after a similar rumour about bank charges on digital payments caused brief public alarm and led to a previous denial from the finance secretary. Users are advised to rely only on official announcements from the RBI and the ministry for any changes to payment system fees.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The outcry over a potential UPI fee plays into a deeper tension in India’s digital payments ecosystem. The RBI mandated zero merchant discount rate (MDR) on UPI since 2018, effectively making the service free for users and merchants while banks and payment apps bore the cost of infrastructure and fraud prevention. With UPI now processing over 15 billion transactions a month, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the regulator face a hard choice: let the system run at a loss, impose a small fee that could chill adoption among price-sensitive users, or devise a tiered model that keeps small-value transactions free. The technology ministry and the RBI are likely to discuss this in the coming months, and the eventual decision will set the trajectory for India's cash-lite push.
Source: telugu360.com
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
