India to End Free UPI Merchant Payments, Remove Zero-MDR Rule

India's Finance Ministry has introduced legislation scrapping the zero-MDR provision governing UPI since January 2020. MDR, or merchant discount rate, is the fee businesses pay to accept digital payments. The bill creates legal authority for such fees on a network processing a record 23.66 billion transactions in July 2026. It sets no rates itself; thresholds and categories come later.