{"id":60559,"date":"2026-08-17T06:53:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T06:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=60559"},"modified":"2026-08-17T06:53:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T06:53:26","slug":"india-built-the-worlds-biggest-digital-payments-miracle-now-comes-the-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=60559","title":{"rendered":"India built the world&#8217;s biggest digital payments miracle. Now comes the bill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BBC:   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For most Indians, paying by Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has become almost absurdly routine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Scan a QR code, tap a few buttons and the money moves instantly. There is no card machine, no cash, and &#8211; most importantly &#8211; for the user, no visible fee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That may be about to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">India has&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/thewire.in\/banking\/lok-sabha-passes-bill-allowing-govt-to-permit-banks-others-to-charge-for-upi-transactions\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">paved the way<\/a>&nbsp;for banks and payment companies to charge merchants a fee on UPI transactions, potentially ending a decade-long experiment in free digital payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The government has yet to decide the rate or exactly where it will apply, but proposals under discussion include a merchant discount rate (MDR) of 0.3-0.5% &#8211; a small fee paid by a business to the banks and payment companies that process its UPI payments &#8211; on larger transactions at big businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The government&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2296594&amp;reg=48&amp;lang=2\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">says<\/a>&nbsp;consumers and person-to-person UPI payments will remain free. If merchant fees are introduced, they will apply only to some transactions above a set threshold, at a nominal rate, meaning most UPI payments will remain free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The question is whether putting a price on UPI could weaken the network that made it such a success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The stakes are enormous. Launched in 2016, UPI has grown into one of the world&#8217;s biggest real-time payment networks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BBC: For most Indians, paying by Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has become almost absurdly routine. Scan a QR code, tap a few buttons and the money moves instantly. There is no card machine, no cash, and &#8211; most importantly &#8211; for the user, no visible fee. That may be about to change. India has&nbsp;paved the way&nbsp;for banks and payment companies to charge merchants a fee on UPI transactions, potentially ending a decade-long experiment in free digital payments. The government has yet to decide the rate or exactly where it will apply, but proposals under discussion include a merchant discount rate&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60561,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60559\/revisions\/60561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/60560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}