Only 17% merchants willing to accept NPCI's 0.4% UPI MDR
A new LocalCircles survey shows that just 17% of merchants are willing to accept the upcoming 0.4% Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on UPI payments over ₹2,000.
Set to kick in from October 15, this fee was announced by NPCI and the survey covered 32,796 merchants and businesses across 242 districts.
Survey finds 41% reject MDR
The survey found that 41% of merchants don't want to pay any MDR at all, while 50% said they'd be willing to bear an MDR of at least 0.04%.
For context, a ₹3,000 transaction would now cost an extra ₹12.
NPCI says person-to-person and up to ₹2,000 UPI payments will stay free, and adds that the new fees will help boost payment infrastructure and cybersecurity.
August UPI volume 24.5B ₹29.9L/cr
Even with these changes coming up, UPI continues to operate at a very large scale, processing a massive 24.5 billion transactions worth nearly ₹29.9 lakh crore in August alone.
This marks a big shift from the zero-fee system businesses have gotten used to since 2020.