Hello and Namaste Everyone,
Unified Payment Interface (UPI) payments are prevalent in India. It is popular because it's easy to use and people can pay using their mobile phones. Most shops and outlets accept payments through U PI; this has grown a lot in the last few years. This time I think about 99% of shops are accepting payments through UPI. I don't know the real numbers to be honest but I have been using UPI for the last 4-5 years. Till now this service is free and there is no charge for the users but I don't know if there are charges or merchants.
There is a discussion by the government authority that soon there might be charges implemented on upi transactions. They have also done a survey and the result is surprising. According to a survey, 75% of users will not be using Upi if they are charged. I think this is an alarming result where governments need to be very careful. This is a payment service that is good for the users and also for the merchants. It is also useful for the government as the usage of physical currency has reduced. It's part of the Digital India program and certainly, there have been great improvements in its adoption.
If I talk about myself then I am not going to use it if there are charges because I don't want to pay charges for making payment. I will switch back to credit card payment wherever it is applicable and will start using my bank account for payments where a credit card is not available. If required I can also start using the cache as a payment option because this is accepted everywhere. Why should I pay the charges for making payments in day-to-day expenses? It does not make any sense so if charges are implemented then I am not going to use this service anymore. You can say that I'm also part of that 75% audience who are not going to use UPI if chargeable.
A new survey shows that most users of India's Unified Payment Interface (UPI) might stop using it if transaction fees are introduced. The survey, conducted by LocalCircles, suggests that 75 percent of users would no longer rely on UPI if such charges were applied.
I don't know how the government is going to work on this. Maybe they are planning to make it a revenue source for them but I don't think it's going to be easy. This is because this payment method is accepted by retail users and small shopkeepers and both of them are not ready to pay any charge. Because even a small charge will affect both but for big businesses, it's not a problem. Instead, it can be good for those who are running big businesses because the charges will be lesser than the MDR. Mdr is the charge which is applied by the card companies like Visa and Mastercard. With UPI this charge will be lesser for bigger merchants so it's a good deal for them but not for small shopkeepers and retail users.
After this survey result, I think it is the time when the government needs to think about whether the charge is a need or not. If they still push then UPI adoption will drop drastically and it won't be good for digital payment infrastructure. There is no further update on this news about what the government is planning to do now but maybe sooner or later they will share with people what they are planning to do now after this surprising survey results.
Thank you so much
Stay Safe
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