New Delhi: National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) clarified on their previous announcement on UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payments which will be charged interchange on above 2000 rupees payments. NPCI announcement caused a lot of confusion among those who rely on UPI transactions for their daily payments. The confusion was regarding if UPI payments will now have a charge or not. Finally, a corrected announcement was released.  

According to the new announcements by NPCI, those who make UPI transactions will now have to pay an additional charge. The corporation also issued a clarification on what kind of UPI transactions will now attract an interchange, and what payments will be made free. There are no charges for bank account-to-bank account-based UPI payments, which are the normal UPI payments.

As per the announcement, the UPI payments for bank account-to-account transactions will continue to remain free for customers. This means that if you use UPI to transfer money to a bank account, there will be no charge. No charges will be applicable for the users of Google pay, Paytm, phonepe, etc. to buy a product or made a purchase from a merchant.

UPI payments made through PPI – such as Paytm wallets and digital wallets – will now attract a fee of Rs 1.1 of the transaction is over Rs 2000 from 1st April 2023. This interchange will be charged to the merchant and not the customer. No extra charge will be there for wallet transactions under Rs 2000. No extra charge will be levied on payments from bank accounts to bank accounts through UPI applications.

At the same time, a charge will be issued from the merchants. Small scale merchant will get a less interchange fee based on their business. 0.5 per cent will be the fee for the petroleum products. 0.9 for telecom, utilities, post office, education, agriculture, supermarkets and 1 per cent for the mutual funds, governments, railway, insurance, etc. will be the fee for UPI transactions.