New Delhi: Is the central government going to put a charge on UPI transactions now? Well, the rumours have been making the rounds on social media ever since a RBI discussion paper was released. The discussion paper explored the possibilities of putting a charge on the UPI transactions.
According to the RBI discussion paper on fees in the payment system published earlier this month, the UPI payments might be subjected to a tiered fee structure depending on different amount ranges.
According to the RBI discussion paper, the technology is similar to IMPS in terms of fund transfer systems, hence it might be claimed that its fund transfer transaction fees should be comparable to IMPS fund transfer fees.
However, the finance ministry on Sunday dismissed online rumors that UPI transactions would be subject to a service fee.
The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) services won’t be subject to any fees from the Indian government. The finance ministry declared in a tweet that UPI will continue to be free.
“UPI is a digital public good with immense convenience for the public and productivity gains for the economy. There is no consideration in Govt to levy any charges for UPI services. The concerns of the service providers for cost recovery have to be met through other means,” the tweet read.
“UPI is a digital public good with immense convenience for the public & productivity gains for the economy. There is no consideration in Govt to levy any charges for UPI services. The concerns of the service providers for cost recovery have to be met through other means. The Govt had provided financial support for #DigitalPayment ecosystem last year and has announced the same this year as well to encourage further adoption of #DigitalPayments and promotion of payment platforms that are economical and user-friendly,” the Ministry of Finance said in a series of tweets.
Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had praised UPI for reaching 6 billion transactions in July.
July saw the most digital transactions since 2016 in terms of volume. According to information made available by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), UPI reported 6.28 billion transactions totaling 10.62 trillion.
