{
  "id": 7573083,
  "title": "India's UPI, which has been free for merchants, will impose a 0.4% merchant fee on certain payments above ₹2,000, or $21, from October 15 in a major shift (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/15/indias-upi-which-has-been-free-for-merchants-will-impose-a-0-4",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-09-15T15:00:45.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Techmeme",
    "slug": "techmeme",
    "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/15/india-ends-free-ride-for-larger-transactions-on-its-ubiquitous-digital-payments-network/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) will start charging merchants a 0.4% fee on certain payments above ₹2,000, or about $21, from October 15. This change, according to TechCrunch, marks a significant shift for the digital payments network, which has been free for merchants to accept since its introduction.\n\nThe fee, capped at ₹300 for transactions of ₹75,000 or more, will not apply to payments of ₹2,000 or less, nor to small merchants receiving up to ₹100,000 a month through UPI. Consumers will continue to use the service for free.\n\nThe National Payments Corporation of India, which operates the network, introduced the change to make the system financially self-sustaining, as it handles billions of payments each month. The move had been anticipated by the payments industry, which had argued that the zero-fee model made it difficult to cover the growing cost of operating the network.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 3,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "TechCrunch",
        "title": "India ends free ride for larger transactions on its ubiquitous digital payments network",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/15/india-ends-free-ride-for-larger-transactions-on-its-ubiquitous",
        "published": "2026-09-15T14:22:49.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Hindu BusinessLine",
        "title": "FPI registration in India to take five business days as Citi launches digital onboarding platform",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/15/fpi-registration-in-india-to-take-five-business-days-as-citi-launches",
        "published": "2026-09-15T15:12:44.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}