No MDR on UPI Payments, Says Govt; Labels Charge Claims as Misleading

The Ministry of Finance issued a clarification on Wednesday evening, around the claims and speculations that the merchant discount rate (MDR) will be charged on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions, dismissing them as false, baseless and misleading.

There were several reports from earlier today which were circulating online claiming that the government was planning to impose MDR on large-ticket UPI transactions.

What Did The Finance Ministry Say?

In a post on X, the ministry wrote, "Speculation and claims that the MDR will be charged on UPI transactions are completely false, baseless, and misleading."

"Such baseless and sensation-creating speculations cause needless uncertainty, fear and suspicion among our citizens," the ministry added.

The Government remains fully committed to promoting digital payments via UPI, the Finance Ministry added in its post on X.

UPI Performance

UPI, operated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), processed 18.68 billion transactions in may, recovering from a dip in April.

In April, UPI had processed 17.89 billion transactions, declining from 18.30 billion in March, amid several outages which disrupted payment services.

There was a 33% year-on-year jump in transaction volumes for May, as compared to 14.03 billion transactions recorded in the same month last year.

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