NPCI directs apps not to charge bill payment fees – Newz9

MUMBAI: The National Payments Corporation of India has requested payment apps to cease charging a platform charge for funds enabled on the Bharat Bill Payment Platform. This is in mild of the RBI popping out with a dialogue paper on payment expenses within the nation. The authorities additionally appears inclined to deal with the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) as a public good that prospects do not have to pay for.
Last yr, PhonePe, which has a big share of UPI transactions in India, began charging for some cellular recharges and different funds. The firm had described the transfer as an experiment to check customers’ willingness to pay a small charge for transactions. In July, Paytm too had began charging Rs 1 for bill funds on its platform.
However, within the second week of August, the NPCI is known to have written to payment apps and requested them to cease charging even this small charge. Paytm officers stated that they’ve instantly discontinued the charge from this month. PhonePe has stated that it has stopped charging for transactions on the Bharat Bill Pay platform nonetheless it stated that the fees that are showing are for companies the place it has constructed direct connectivity with the biller with out going via BBPS. These embrace some bank card bill funds and a few cellular recharges.
BBPS allows wherever-anytime bill payment for utilities and different billers like insurance coverage corporations, bank cards, subscription fees, fastag and municipal expenses. Before BBPS there have been a number of aggregators who introduced their retailers on one platform and payment corporations would hyperlink to these aggregators.
“We have been running experiments on charging platform fees across different categories for some time now. The results look promising, and reflect the fact that a very large majority of Indian consumers (98%) are willing to pay a nominal fee for the convenience offered by PhonePe. For now, we have temporarily paused our platform fees experiments on all eligible BBPS categories. We will share our experimental findings with NPCI/BBPS, and then seek their support in standardizing nominal platform fees,” stated PhonePe in an e mail response. The NPCI did not instantly reply to queries.