Shares of Bajaj Finserv fell nearly 3% a day after the Finance Ministry said it would not consider charging any fees for transactions made through the United Payments Interface (UPI).

The statement dispelled concerns in the RBI discussion paper about payment system fees, indicating that UPI payments may be subject to tiered fees based on different currency tiers.

Shares of BSE were down 2.3% at Rs 15,918.4 at the time of writing. Currently, there are no fees for transactions through UPI.

In a tweet, the Finance Ministry said that without considering any fees for UPI services, service provider concerns about cost recovery must be addressed “by other means.”

UPI is a digital public good that provides great convenience to the public and brings productivity gains to the economy. The government does not consider charging any fees for UPI services. Service provider concerns about cost recovery must be addressed in other ways, the Ministry of Finance tweeted on August 21, 2022.

The RBI discussion paper published earlier this month stated that UPI as a remittance system is like IMPS, so it can be argued that fees in UPI need to be similar to remittance transaction fees in IMPS.

“The government provided financial support to the #DigitalPayment ecosystem last year and announced the same this year to encourage further adoption of #DigitalPayments and promote an economical and user-friendly payment platform,” said another tweet from the ministry.

From January 1, 2020, the government will implement a zero-fee framework for UPI transactions. This means UPI charges zero fees to users and merchants.