The Finance Ministry on Thursday dismissed allegations that US pressure influenced the decision to levy a 0.4% Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on select UPI payments, saying the latest NPCI guidelines do not offer any advantage to international credit cards over RuPay on the UPI platform.
The Department of Financial Services (DFS) issued the clarification in response to observations in the US Trade Representative's (USTR) 2026 report on the inability of US electronic payment service providers to participate in the UPI ecosystem, including credit transactions on UPI, on a level playing field with RuPay.
