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This means access to other articles (outside the subscription period) are not included.
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The timing of the discussion itself also seems premature.
The discussion paper, at this stage hence can be said to be 'needless' per se.
It is matter of normal commonsense that THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR behind the explosion in UPI transactions is because of ZERO MIDDLEMAN FEE which is technically called MDR.
It may also be noted the NEFT has also been made free (i.e. zero cost) through online channels i.e. netbanking, mobile banking etc..
UPI is not restricted anymore to an elite and bourgeois population of India. It has started to trickle into the remaining 'bottom of pyramid' mass citizens of India. No examples required to prove this point. The FM of India tweeted a video about UPI payments some time back.
Now, (though technically nobody ever said that UPI will be free for everrrr) any kind of discussion on charges on UPI at this stage will be nothing other than thuggery on its user-stakeholders. Also to note that NEFT continues to be free.
All this premature, ill timed and urgency shown in this, smacks of lobbies of these top three multinationals (Walmart, Google and Alibaba-PayTM) who have spent massively by way of cashbacks/doles to acquire users. One would rather say purchased users.
Now, it is time to rake in the moolah!
And what better an establishment where one stroke of policy change can alter the revenues overnight almost.
And hence in such a scenario, the interested parties will indeed lobby.
It were similar lobbies that opposed card tokenisation, reduced MDR on Rupay debit cards, stricter guidelines on recurring merchant payments and farther ago, the 2FA i.e. OTP requirement on online card transactions.
It is clear for one and all to see what the above have done to India i.e. SAFE online transactions environment. This was the start of the virtuous cycle by halting the perennial vicious cycle i.e. the masses do not adopt and hence do not transact online as the experience as well as perception is that it is unsafe. Because of the above stringent measures (mainly 2FA), the masses start to adopt virtual/online financial txns and the virtuous cycle has started.
If you look at the demography of India, it would be almost a unanimous view/call that it is a massive feat that an online money transaction mode like UPI has grown up so fast, so deep.
Such retrograde steps would be a historical mistake at this stage.
UPI is one of the success outputs of the JAM trinity/trident.
Just like the JanDhan programme that was implemented notwithstanding and without the active participation of the 'profit-only' club of intermediaries i.e. those banks that only look at per unit money made, when they have a choice to either offer or not offer such services. The GoI drove the JanDhan programme through PSU Banks and their ilk.
Similarly it would be better and acceptable to for India to have only the BHIM app and other PSU bank UPI apps (which it is assumed that may not be in that kind of hurry to make money from UPI) and not have the remaining ones led by the big three (Walmart-PhonePe, Alphabet-Google-GPay and Alibaba-Softbank-PayTM) that would rather kill the golden goose for the Indian economy, to make immediate money.