Daily Brief

DPI Brief — August 15, 2026 UPI Hits Record 23.66 Billion Monthly Transactions in July India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) processed 23.66 billion transactions worth ₹29.88 lakh crore in July 2026, registering a new all-time high according to NPCI data released this week. Volume grew 4.1% month-on-month from June’s 22.72 billion, while average daily transactions touched approximately 763 million. On a year-on-year basis, volumes grew 22%. The concentration dynamics remain noteworthy: the top three apps — PhonePe (48.38% volume share), Google Pay (~37%), and Paytm — together processed 93% of all UPI transactions in July. NPCI has been actively pushing new product lines — including UPI Tap & Pay, Hello UPI (conversational payments), and UPI Lite X for feature phones — to diversify usage patterns and chase its ambitious 100 billion monthly transaction target. ...

DPI Brief — August 14, 2026 India’s Digital Public Infrastructure ecosystem saw significant developments across payments, governance, health, and trust layers in the past 24 hours. Here are the key updates. UPI Enters “UPI@10” Era as Government Signals MDR Flexibility (L2 — Payments) The Finance Ministry has signalled that subsidies alone cannot sustain UPI’s next growth phase as the system enters its tenth year of operations. According to a detailed analysis in UPSC daily current affairs, UPI ecosystem costs are estimated around ₹20,000 crore annually, while existing government subsidies do not fully cover technology, infrastructure, and compliance expenses. ...

DPI Brief — August 12, 2026 UPI Expands to Sri Lankan Ride-Hailing; BRICS Discusses CBDC Interoperability L2 — Payments: India’s payments infrastructure diplomacy continues to accelerate. NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) announced a partnership with Sri Lanka’s ride-hailing platform PickMe, enabling Indian tourists to pay for rides via UPI and receive a flat 20% discount per trip (capped at LKR 750). This is the latest in a series of UPI integrations across Sri Lanka, which has seen international UPI transactions surge from 180 in 2022 to over 7.5 lakh in 2025 — a 20-fold increase. With India remaining Sri Lanka’s largest tourism source market (5.31 lakh Indian visitors in 2025), the integration targets everyday consumer use cases rather than just merchant payments. UPI for Indian Travelers @ Lanka With PickMe Rides — FinTech Biz News ...

DPI Brief — August 11, 2026 Parliament Clears Path for UPI Merchant Fees, Ending Zero-MDR Era The Lok Sabha passed the Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 on August 6, creating the legal groundwork for reintroducing Merchant Discount Rates (MDR) on UPI transactions. The amendment authorises the government to permit banks and service providers to levy charges on electronic payments, a power that had effectively been suspended since the zero-MDR mandate of January 2020. The government has clarified that person-to-person (P2P) payments will remain free for citizens; any MDR would apply only to merchant transactions, with reports suggesting rates of 0.25–0.30% for high-value transactions by large merchants. The actual structure—including thresholds and rate slabs—will be decided by the NPCI-headed UPI and Services Steering Committee once the bill receives Rajya Sabha approval. The move comes as UPI’s growth moderates: transaction volumes grew 23.5% year-on-year between April and July FY27, down from 33.5% in the same period last year, even as value growth held steady at ~20%. ...

DPI Brief — August 10, 2026 Parliament Passes Landmark Bill Opening Door for UPI Merchant Fees The Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 has been passed by both houses of Parliament, amending the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 to legally enable a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on UPI transactions. The Lok Sabha passed the bill on August 6, with the Rajya Sabha taking it up on August 11. The amendment removes the existing legal prohibition on charging fees for electronic payments, giving the government power to notify which modes remain free and at what thresholds. ...

DPI Brief — August 09, 2026 India’s Digital Public Infrastructure ecosystem saw significant activity across multiple layers this week — from a landmark Supreme Court hearing on the tension between data protection and transparency laws, to GeM crossing a ₹20 lakh crore procurement milestone on its tenth anniversary. GeM Completes a Decade, Crosses ₹20 Lakh Crore in Cumulative Procurement Layer: L4 — Commerce (GeM) The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) completes ten years of operations on August 9, marking a significant milestone in India’s digital governance journey. As of August 7, the platform has facilitated cumulative procurement worth over ₹20 lakh crore through more than 3.78 crore orders, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. ...

DPI Brief — August 08, 2026 Lok Sabha Passes Bill Enabling MDR on UPI — L2 Payments The Lok Sabha on August 6 passed the Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, amending the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 to empower the Central Government to permit banks and payment service providers to levy charges on UPI and other notified electronic payment modes. The amendment removes the legal restriction on charging Merchant Discount Rate (MDR), a long-standing policy that made UPI effectively free for all parties. ...

DPI Brief — August 07, 2026 1. Parliament Passes Bill Amending Payment and Settlement Systems Act — UPI MDR Legal Framework Created (L2: Payments) The Lok Sabha on August 6 passed the Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, which amends Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. The amendment removes the legal provision that prevented banks and payment service providers from charging a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on UPI transactions, creating the legal authority for the government to notify MDR charges in the future. ...

DPI Brief — August 06, 2026 Government Moves to Legalise Merchant Fees on High-Value UPI Transactions [L2 — Payments] The Union government tabled the Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 in Parliament on August 5, proposing amendments to the Payment and Settlement Systems Act that would remove UPI’s blanket statutory exemption from the Merchant Discount Rate (MDR). The Bill itself does not impose charges — it creates the legal framework that would allow the government to notify MDR on specific digital payment modes in the future. ...

DPI Brief — August 04, 2026 1. Payments Act Amendment Clears Path for UPI MDR — L2 (Payments) The Finance Ministry has proposed amending the Payment and Settlement Systems Act to scrap the zero-MDR (Merchant Discount Rate) provision that has kept UPI transactions free for merchants since 2020. The proposed amendment shifts the power to notify “fee-protected” payment modes from RBI to the Centre — a move widely seen as a precursor to introducing merchant charges on UPI payments. ...