Arti Bali, Sept. 17 -- Industry leaders have backed the government's newly-introduced Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on select UPI merchant transactions, arguing that the charge will facilitate sustained investment in India's digital payments ecosystem and extend UPI's reach to smaller merchants in rural and semi-urban areas.

The government set a 0.4 per cent charge on UPI payments above Rs 2,000 to merchants and capped the fee at Rs 300 for payments of Rs 75,000 and above as it rolled out a framework for large digital merchant payments.

BillDesk Co-founder and Director Srinivasu M.N. said the fee would be paid by merchants and would largely flow to banks, payment aggregators and other ecosystem participants rather than to the government. "...