Centre mulls levying MDR on UPI transactions worth over Rs 3,000: Report

Government is likely to permit lenders to levy MDR on the transaction value, instead of merchant turnover

The Central government is considering levying merchant discount rate on large-ticket Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions, a report by NDTV Profit said on June 11.

Transactions worth Rs 3,000 and above could see the application of MDR, the report said.

Moreover, the government is likely to permit lenders to levy MDR on the transaction value, instead of merchant turnover, the report said.

As of now, the small-ticket transactions are likely to remain out of MDR’s purview, it added.

The latest development comes after earlier this year the Payment Council of India had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government to reconsider Zero MDR policy for UPI transactions.

Last week, Moneycontrol had reported that the digital payments platform will soon overtake global payments giant Visa’s daily transaction volume, making it the largest retail interbank payment settlement platform in the world.

As on June 1, UPI had recorded 644 million transactions and 650 million the next day. Visa processed an average of 639 million daily transactions during FY24. It does not share daily transaction data.