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UPI MDR: Govt’s eagle eye on merchants
UPI users may not have to pay Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) directly, but the government is keeping a close eye on whether the cost gets passed on to them indirectly.
The government plans to closely monitor payment gateways and other platforms to ensure merchantsdo not pass MDR charges on to customers, a finance ministry official told us.
- MDR, the fee businesses pay to banks for processing digital payments. has been fixed at 0.4% for UPI transactions, from October 15.
Many payment firms charge fees under different names, such as technology fees or platform fees, for processing UPI payments.
Cash is king?
There has been speculation on social media that MDR could push some users back towards cash, particularly those who shifted to digital payments over the past five years.
- The government is looking to bring greater transparency and prevent hidden charges from being added to bills to recover MDR costs.
It believes that monitoring is required to ensure that the merchant-side charge does not become a separate cost for users.
What to watch:Whether merchants absorb the cost or find other ways to recover it from customers, and how effectively government monitoring prevents such pass-through.
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