Received a WhatsApp forward that said UPI is no longer free and you will have to pay a fee for online transactions? Don’t worry, such messages are misleading and fake.

National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) via its official Twitter handle has issued a statement clarifying that there is no charge to customers. As per the rule, the interchange charges are applicable for Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPI). This means that UPI transactions made via PPIs such as wallets, credit cards will have an interchange fee of 1.1%. 

Additionally, there are no charges for the bank account to bank account based UPI payments i.e. normal UPI payments. “With this addition to UPI, the customers will have the choice of using any bank accounts, Rupay Credit card and prepaid wallets on UPI enabled apps," NPCI’s Twitter post further clarifies.