UPI has ‘borne good fruits’ but costs have to be met for service to be sustainable: RBI governor

Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra has said that the Unified Payments Interface for digital payments has “borne good fruits”, but cautioned that costs have to be met for any service to be sustainable.

His remarks at the Financial Express BFSI Summit in Mumbai on Friday came amid speculation that instant transactions made via UPI to large merchants may attract a fee in the future.

“Payments and money are the lifeline for any economy,” Malhotra said. “We need to have a universally accessible and efficient system. It is a public infrastructure that needs to be provided.”

He noted that currently, there are no charges for using UPI, and that the Union government is subsidising the costs for various players, banks and stakeholders.

“Obviously, some costs have to be paid,” Malhotra said. “They will have to be defrayed. Right now, it’s the government which is defraying those costs. Going forward, how those costs will be met…I am sure the government will be looking at it.”

Noting that UPI constitutes important infrastructure, he added that the Union government had taken the view that it should be made available for free and was subsidising it. “And I would say it has borne good fruits,” Malhotra said.

However, the RBI governor added that such a system would only be...

Read more

News