UPI Merchant Transactions Over ₹2,000 To Carry Charge Of 1.1% From April 1, 2023

Mr.J

Skilled
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said that using Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs) for transactions through UPI will attract an interchange fee. The charges will be levied if the transaction is more than ₹2,000.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has notified that an interchange fee of up to 1.1 per cent will be applicable on merchant UPI (Unified Payments Interface) transactions from April 1.

In a recent circular, the NPCI said that using Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs) for transactions through UPI will attract an interchange fee. The charges will be levied if the transaction is more than ₹ 2,000.

The interchange fee varies for the different categories of merchants. It ranges from 0.5% to 1.1% and a cap is also applicable in certain categories.

In a notification issued today, NPCI said that the introduced fee is only applicable for merchant transactions made through prepaid payment instruments. The payments body clarified that no charges will be levied on normal UPI payments which it termed as "bank account- to-bank account based UPI payments."

For telecom, education, and utilities/post office, the interchange fee is 0.7% while for supermarkets the fee is 0.9% of the transaction value. 1% charges will be levied for insurance, government, mutual funds, and railways, 0.5% for fuel, and 0.7 for agriculture, reported CNBC TV-18.

The charges will be applicable from April 1.

Interchange will not be applied in the case of Peer-to-peer (P2P) and peer-to-peer-merchant (P2PM) transactions. PPP issuers will be required to pay 15 basis points (bps) to the remitter bank as a wallet-loading charge for transactions of over ₹ 2,000.

The pricing will be reviewed by the NPCI on or before September 30, 2023.

In August last year, the Finance Ministry stated that UPI is a digital public good and that it was not considering levying any charges on transactions made through it. “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 ministry tweeted.

The statement had come after the RBI issued a discussion paper that said that UPI as a fund transfer system is like IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) and hence it could be argued that charges in UPI could be similar to those levied on IMPS fund transfers.

 

PradUp

Reseller
So, what does this mean in simple words? A few key takeaways:

1- UPI payments made through PPIs -- read digital wallets like PayTM wallet -- will now attract 1.1 per cent fee if the value of the transaction is Rs 2000 or more.

2- The wallet transactions that are worth less than Rs 2000 will not attract this charge.

3- The fee will be levied on the merchant side. This means merchants may or may not choose to pass on the extra fee to consumers.

4- Regular UPI transactions, the ones that are made directly from bank account to bank account, remain free.

Source
 

vink

Disciple
3- The fee will be levied on the merchant side. This means merchants may or may not choose to pass on the extra fee to consumers.
small shops will surely pass it on customers..
 

Ssreek

Adept
If we buy anything in shop for less than 2000, then no need to pay that charge right?

Also if we are not using those "wallets", then need not pay extra fee.
What if the recipient is getting that amount into wallet? Such a scenario exists?
 

PradUp

Reseller
If we buy anything in shop for less than 2000, then no need to pay that charge right?

Also if we are not using those "wallets", then need not pay extra fee.
What if the recipient is getting that amount into wallet? Such a scenario exists?
If you are not using wallet to pay then no fees are applicable no matter the amount, no matter if you are using paytm, phonepe etc.

From what I have seen almost everyone makes payment using their bank linked account so this won't affect almost anyone.

Who and why are people using these wallets? Can any wallet user explain why they use it?

small shops will surely pass it on customers..
Well that will discourage people from using these wallets and they might stop using them so to retain customers they might absorb the additional fees.
Edit: By they I mean wallet companies and not the small shop owner.