What can Asia, Global South learn from India’s new digital payment fee?

AI Summary

India is introducing fees for merchants using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) digital payment system for everyday transactions. This policy change could impact the affordability and adoption of digital payments across Asia and other Global South regions that look to India as a model.

For millions of Indians, buying a cup of chai or groceries from roadside vendors has come to mean reaching for their phones rather than wallets – a habit made possible by a system that has so far charged consumers nothing for such everyday transactions. Now, a decade after the government launched the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India is asking some merchants to pay for the hugely popular system – raising questions over whether it can preserve the low-cost model that drove its mass adoption...