The finance ministry on Sunday said it doesn’t have any plan to impose any charge for UPI (Unified Payment Interface) services and that the concerns of the service providers for cost recovery have to be met through other means.

The statement came days after a discussion paper by the Reserve Bank of India had sought feedback from stakeholders on the possibility of imposing a tiered charge on the UPI services.

The UPI, the finance ministry stressed, is a “digital public good with immense convenience for the public and productivity gains for the economy”.

In a tweet, the ministry said: “The Govt had provided financial support for #DigitalPayment ecosystem last year and has announced the same this year as well to encourage further adoption of #DigitalPayments and promotion of payment platforms that are economical and user-friendly.”

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On August 17, the RBI’s discussion paper on charges in payment systems sought to structure its policies and streamline the framework of charges for different payment services or activities, such as UPI, IMPS (Immediate Payment Service), NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer), RTGS (Real-Time Gross Settlement), and payment instruments including debit cards, credit cards, and prepaid payment instruments (PPIs).

“At this stage, it is reiterated that the RBI has neither taken any view nor has any specific opinion on the issues raised in this discussion paper,” it added.

“UPI as a funds transfer system is like IMPS. Therefore, it could be argued that the charges in UPI need to be similar to charges in IMPS for fund transfer transactions. A tiered charge could be imposed based on the different amount bands,” said the discussion paper.

The UPI ecosystem has picked up pace in recent years. The UPI registered 6.28 billion transactions in July 2022, its highest number of transactions since its launch six years ago. In value term, the transactions were worth `10.63 trillion. The volume and the value of transactions in July were up 7.2% and 4.8%, respectively, from the June levels.