HDFC Bank to reconsider UPI charges

MUMBAI: HDFC Bank has held back and will be reconsidering their decision to charge Unified Payments Interface based transactions, said a spokesperson of the bank on micro blogging site Twitter.

This comes in the wake of the bank getting embroiled in a major controversy two days back, when they sent a mail to its customers saying that all UPI payments will be charged from July 10.

In a letter to its customers the country's second largest private sector lender said that UPI payments till Rs 25000 will be charged Rs 3 plus service tax and anything above Rs 25000 till Rs 1 lakh will be charged Rs 5 plus service tax.

National Payments Corporation of India which runs the UPI railroads had requested the bank to reconsider the decision and is expected to call a meeting with bankers very soon.

"We have held it back too like few other banks. Reconsidering,” tweeted the bank's spokesperson in the context of the UPI charges it had decided to levy.

While UPI has gained significant ground post demonetisation and received a major fillip with the government promoting it through BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money), charges imposed on such nascent modes of transactions could hamper further adoption, felt bankers.

As HDFC Bank was in the middle of the debate, even State Bank of IndiaBSE -0.67 % was said to have started charging UPI transactions to which the largest lender clarified that they were not charging UPI transactions.

"As of now there are no charges on UPI based payments on SBI," said Manju Aggarwal, deputy managing director, SBI.

As per the latest numbers released by the central bank, UPI has clocked 9.2 million transactions for the month of May against 6.9 million in the previous month.

HDFC Bank