NSE CEO Ashish Chauhan Says UPI MDR Charges May Hit Volumes In Near Term

National Stock Exchange CEO Ashish Chauhan anticipates that the implementation of Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) charges on higher-value UPI transactions will only have a limited short-term effect on digital payment volumes. These charges, applicable to transactions exceeding Rs 2,000, may initially cause a dip in transaction volumes but are expected to normalize over time.

NSE Managing Director and CEO Ashishkumar Chauhan stated this as per reports from Moneycontrol. The government recently permitted the possibility of MDR charges on UPI transactions above ₹2,000, while smaller transactions remain exempt from such fees. Chauhan assured that the impact on users and transaction activity is anticipated to be temporary.

This comes ahead of NSE's highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO), which is set to launch on September 17. The IPO includes an offer for sale of 12.64 crore shares, with the price band set at ₹1,700-1,785 per share, aiming to raise more than ₹22,000 crore. Chauhan noted that interest from anchor investors has been stronger than expected, particularly following the reduction in the size of the issue.

The demand from anchor investors for the NSE IPO is unexpectedly large due to the shrinkage in the book size, making the demand much larger than anticipated. NSE is also enhancing its technology capacity to manage the increasing market activity. The exchange currently processes an order-processing capacity of 15 lakh orders per second, which could escalate to 5 crore orders per second with further technological upgrades.

NSE manages around 2,200 crore orders and 30 crore trades daily, and its investor base has reached 13.2 crore unique investors.