{
  "id": 9740208,
  "title": "Proposed UPI Merchant Discount Rate not a tax, cess or surcharge; will not burden consumers: FM",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/25/proposed-upi-merchant-discount-rate-not-a-tax-cess-or-surcharge-will",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-09-25T09:16:42.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "YourStory",
    "slug": "yourstory",
    "url": "https://yourstory.com/2026/09/proposed-upi-merchant-discount-rate-not-a-tax-cess-or-surcharge-fm"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman clarified that the proposed Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on high-value UPI transactions is not a tax, cess, or surcharge, and will not burden consumers. The MDR is a charge within the digital payments ecosystem, collected by entities facilitating UPI transactions such as payment service providers, merchant banks, and other ecosystem participants. Sitharaman assured that the MDR will not be passed on to consumers and will be borne within the merchant payment ecosystem, with the collected amount shared among multiple participants to help maintain technology infrastructure and support improvements and innovation in digital payments.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "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."
}