The government may consider imposing a 0.3 percent Uniform Digital Payment Facilitation Fee on such transactions to ensure funding of the infrastructure required for the UPI Payment System and to ensure its financial strength. The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Bombay) has suggested this in a study. A study published with the title ‘Charges for PPI based UPI payments – The Deception’ states that around Rs 5,000 crore can be raised in 2023-24 from a 0.3 per cent facilitation fee.

Wallet payment to be affected.

In this study, the impact of the decision of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to impose interchange fee on payments made through mobile wallets has been analysed. In which it has been said that there should be no charge on the payment received by the shopkeepers, whether it comes directly through UPI or through prepaid e-wallet.

1.1% interchange fee applied on these transactions.

NPCI has started the provision of deducting ‘intercharge’ fee of 1.1 percent of the payment amount from April 1, 2023, for making payments through UPI to shopkeepers. However, this will be applicable for Prepaid Wallet-based UPI Merchant Transactions.

Under the existing law, no bank or UPI provider can levy any fee directly or indirectly on a person making or receiving payment through UPI. However, on several occasions banks and system providers have tried to comply with the UPI law at their own convenience.