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Budget 2021: Rs1,500 crore for digital payments industry to offset MDR losses
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The finance minister had in Budget 2019 waived off merchant discount rates (MDR) on UPI and RuPay transactions, to give a fillip to digital payments.
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Mumbai: India’s burgeoning digital payments industry received a budget boost from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman by way of a Rs 1,500 crore fund earmarked for the growth of the sector and to “incentivise” businesses deploying solutions.
Industry chief executives and experts told ET that the newly announced fund could be the much sought-after “compensation” for the losses incurred by the industry on account of the waiver of Merchant Discount Rates (MDR) on UPI and RuPay transactions announced by the finance minister in her first budget in 2019.
MUMBAI: The central bank’s newly established corpus of Rs 345 crore for developing payment infrastructure in rural India could ease the unit economics for key stakeholders to deploy terminals in the absence of Merchant Discount Rate (MDR).
However, key stakeholders – the banks and payment companies would continue to demand the resumption of transaction charges albeit a discounted one, on UPI and RuPay, in the upcoming union budget.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday announced the operationalization of the Payment Investment Development Fund (PIDF) with an initial corpus of Rs 345 crore for three years – extendable up to an additional two more years.