Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday accused the Indian government of quietly setting the tone for fees on Unified Payments Interface transactions, after new rules ensured that payments up to ₹2,000 would be free.
“Quietly opened the door to imposing fees on UPI,” Gandhi said in a post on X, alleging that the government was paving the way for charges on higher-value transactions and had yielded to pressure from US payment companies.
The government on Monday asked banks and payment system providers not to charge for UPI transactions up to ₹2,000 or payments through RuPay debit cards. No fee is charged for transactions above that limit in the notification.
Gandhi argued that in the long run all merchant charges could be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. He also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of compromising India’s digital payments system under pressure from foreign countries.
The government, however, said the notification in itself does not introduce UPI charges. BJP leader Amit Malviya called the claims of a 0.5% fee being fixed for transactions above ₹2,000 “completely false”, Business Today reported. He added that person-to-person UPI payments continue to be free at any amount.
The row comes as India reviews the long-standing zero-MDR regime for its widely used digital payments network.
