Reserve Bank Of India Has No Proposal To Impose Fee On UPI Transactions: RBI Governor

New Delhi: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra on Wednesday reiterated that the central bank has no proposal to impose a fee on transactions done through Unified Payments Interface (UPI). The governor's clarification came during his address after the post-Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting.

Malhotra stated that he had never said UPI could stay free forever, but he noted that someone needs to bear the costs associated with its functioning. "What I said was there are costs associated with UPI transactions, and the same need to be paid for by someone," the governor said. The governor had clarified the same during the previous post-policy conferences.

Earlier in the morning, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) data showed that the UPI saw 31 per cent transaction count growth (year-on-year) at 19.63 billion in September. The transaction amount also rose 21 per cent to Rs 24.90 lakh crore. Month-wise too, UPI witnessed a growth in transaction amount, from Rs 24.85 lakh crore in August. Average daily transaction amount in September stood at Rs 82,991 crore, a rise from Rs 80,177 crore in August, the NPCI data showed.

According to data, the UPI recorded 654 million average daily transaction counts in the month, up from 645 million in August. In August, the UPI transactions had crossed 20 billion for the first time in its history. UPI had earlier achieved a record of crossing 700 million transactions in a single day on August 2. Meanwhile, the RBI's monetary policy committee (MPC) has decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 5.5 per cent, and stick to the “neutral” policy stance.

A neutral stance finds a delicate balance between containing inflation without impairing growth, so it doesn't call for either stimulation or liquidity restrictions. The RBI Governor stated that the sharp drop in food prices and the reductions in the GST rate had made the inflation outlook even more benign. As a result, the RBI has changed its average inflation rate forecast from 3.1 per cent in August to 2.6 per cent for 2025–2026.

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