The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has deferred the rollout of merchant discount rate (MDR) charges on certain Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions until after Diwali. A fresh implementation date will be announced shortly, NPCI managing director and chief executive officer Dilip Asbe told Mint on Tuesday.
“We have deferred the rollout until after Diwali. The final date will be announced soon,” Asbe said.
The decision comes amid pushback from trade bodies and concerns that the charges could dampen spending during the festive season. On 15 September, the ministry had announced the reintroduction of the merchant discount rate (MDR) on select transactions, after it was scrapped in January 2020.
Under the proposed framework, an MDR of 0.4% was to be levied on eligible person-to-merchant (P2M) UPI transactions exceeding ₹2,000, with a maximum charge of ₹300 for transactions of ₹75,000 and above.
Person-to-person (P2P) transactions and merchant payments of up to ₹2,000 were to remain exempt. Small merchants with monthly UPI transactions of up to ₹1 lakh were also proposed to be excluded from the charges.
is the charge paid by merchants to banks, card networks and point-of-sale providers for offline transactions, and to payment gateways for online purchases.
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