Rajiv Kumar urges government to keep UPI 0-fee, boost adoption
Rajiv Kumar, former vice chairman of NITI Aayog, is encouraging the government to stick with zero-fee Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions.
He believes keeping UPI free helps more people go digital and says the benefits far outweigh what's spent on the system.
Kumar warns small fees revive cash
Kumar suggests zero fees should stay until the currency-to-GDP ratio shows some tendency to decline.
He warns that even a small charge could push people back to using cash: Rajiv Kumar says, "This presents a very significant opportunity for transactions to shift back to cash; charging the smallest of fee will incentivise the regressive behavior."
With new rules bringing in a 0.4% fee for bigger merchant payments soon (but not for regular users), Kumar hopes the zero-fee policy continues so digital payments keep growing.