News Date- 21 August 2022

• The Centre on Sunday said there are no plans to levy charges for making payments through Unified Payments Interface (UPI) while saying the service is a "digital public good with immense convenience".
• The Ministry of Finance on Sunday said the concerns of service providers for cost recovery have to be met through other means.
• "UPI is a digital public good with immense convenience for the public & productivity gains for the economy. There is no consideration in the Government to levy any charges for UPI services. The concerns of the service providers for cost recovery have to be met through other means," the ministry tweeted.
• This comes days after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) sought feedback from stakeholders on the possibility of imposing gradual charges on payments made through UPI, based on different amount bands. A discussion paper floated by the RBI sought to streamline the framework of charges for different payment services or activities, such as UPI, IMPS (Immediate Payment Service), NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer), RTGS (Real-Time Gross Settlement), and payment instruments including debit cards, credit cards, and prepaid payment instruments (PPIs).
• Even as the RBI has sought feedback on the proposal by October 3, the central bank reiterated it has neither taken any view nor has any specific opinion on the issues raised in the discussion paper.
• Currently, no cost is incurred by users or merchants in the case of payments made through UPI.

Source-https://twitter.com/FinMinIndia/status/1561367751658192897?s=20&t=lwO141IS2PDxkA9A-q0qhA