India built the world's biggest digital payments miracle. Now comes the bill

bbc ^

[algore]

For most Indians, paying by Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has become almost absurdly routine.

Scan a QR code, tap a few buttons and the money moves instantly. There is no card machine, no cash, and - most importantly - for the user, no visible fee.

That may be about to change.

India has paved the way for banks and payment companies to charge merchants a fee on UPI transactions, potentially ending a decade-long experiment in free digital payments.

The government has yet to decide the rate or exactly where it will apply, but proposals under discussion include a merchant discount rate (MDR) of 0.3-0.5% - a small fee paid by a business to the banks and payment companies that process its UPI payments - on larger transactions at big businesses.

The government says consumers and person-to-person UPI payments will remain free.

The question is whether putting a price on UPI could weaken the network that made it such a success.

The stakes are enormous. Launched in 2016, UPI has grown into one of the world's biggest real-time payment networks.

UPI is not merely big. Its design is unusual. Rather than building a closed system around a single dominant app, India created common digital plumbing on which competing companies could operate.

Google Pay and PhonePe can fight fiercely for customers while still allowing their users to transact across the same network. The system is run by the National Payments Corporation of India, a non-profit entity, with banks and technology companies providing the consumer-facing services.

But one of the less glamorous ingredients in the UPI story may now be the most important: merchants.

A vegetable seller, taxi driver or small shopkeeper does not need to buy a card terminal to accept UPI. A printed QR code will do.

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TOPICS: Heated Discussion
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[algore]

The Bankster overlords learned something from Vaxx hesitancy.

There will be no digital money problems until we have much harder penetration of the segment.

I hope the female .Indians stay sane and continue to horde gold and silver.

(For some reason several of the .Indian men I know have tt me about where and how to store this stuff their wives make them buy)

[fruser1]

free digital payments

Who was paying for it before?

Or was the system designed, built, and operated by slaves?

And were the slave's housing, clothes, and food provided by other slaves?

[algore]

Yes.

[PGR88]

Indian started this about 10 years ago, and in true oriental-despot / socialist fashion, they literally demanded its use overnight, for literally everyone in the nation - even vegetable sellers on the street.

At the same time, they outlawed 500 rupee and larger notes, saying that such large denominations were in the hands of “drug-dealers and criminals” anyway, and made everyone take their old notes to the banks for exchange to new currency.

An excellent way to force savings out from under mattress, turn cash over the monitored, digital economy, tax them, or simply destroy people’s purchasing power.

[I want the USA back]

First they lure you into it. Then they start doing what they really intended to do.

How long before the government taxes every transaction and takes whatever it wants of your money?

[butlerweave]

How much of people’s money is vanishing without them knowing

[butlerweave]

All your money belongs to us

[algore]

iirc

“All Your Money are belong to US” would be more proper

and the likely outcome since we allow it.

the Dollar is not dead, but I believe it is slowly bleeding out.

I remember listening to some Catherine Austin Fitts being interviewed by Art Bell and he asked her what would happen if the petro dollar collapsed.

she paused for a long time and just said “That cannot happen.”

but unfortunately it is.

[algore]

[LegendHasIt]

Next comes having it linked to your ‘social credit score’ to determine if you are even allowed to buy or sell.

[oldtech]

Sounds like just more problems for the average citizen. Makes me glad I should be gone in a very few years. At this point they have yet how to deal with a deceased person directly.

[montag813]

It makes more sense to me now why this is an entire nation of scammers.

I know someone who build a very successful SaaS business - $60k per month in sales - and he said after year 1 he had to cut of the entire nation of India, because 95% of his chargebacks came from there alone. He had dozens of Indians who actively used his products for a full year - as evidenced by numerous support tickets - and then when done claimed they never authorized it to credit card companies. There is something seriously wrong with these people. Is there no basic morality in Hinduism?