Ministry of Finance on Sunday said that they are not going to levy any charges on the digital mode of payment as ‘UPI Payment’ is for the good of the people as it provides them with the convenience of gaining money. The tweet from the finance ministry came after, RBI in their discussion suggested to levy on UPI.
“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 ministry tweeted on its official handle.
While service providers have been asking for means of cost recovery, charging a fee would not be the option, it added. “The concerns of the service providers for cost recovery have to be met through other means,” it said.
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. (1/2)
— Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia)
August 21, 2022
The Finance Ministry also said that government fully support digital payment and they will further promote the mode so that people can adopt it.
“The Govt had provided financial support for #DigitalPayment ecosystem last year and has announced the same this year as well to encourage further adoption of #DigitalPayments and promotion of payment platforms that are economical and user-friendly,” it said in another tweet.
Earlier, RBI sought public feedback on the possibility of imposing a phased charge on payments made through the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) in a bid to make such transactions affordable.
The central bank in the regard released a discussion paper on Charges in Payment Systems and said, “UPI as a funds transfer system is like IMPS. Therefore, it could be argued that the charges in UPI need to be similar to charges in IMPS for fund transfer transactions. A tiered charge could be imposed on the different amount bands.”
