Government to soon formulate policy on fees charged for modes of digital payments: Niti Aayog

The government will soon come out with a policy on the fee being charged for different modes of digital payments, a Niti Aayog official said today. Government think tank Niti Aayog has submitted a research report on digital payment trends and challenges to the government. According to the research report, one of the major issues impacting digital transactions is the fee on digital payments. Digital payments through RTGS, NEFT and debit cards attract different charges. “The government is currently evaluating these charges and will soon come out with suitable policy suggestions,” Niti Aayog Principal Adviser, Social Sector, Ratan P Watal said at an event in New Delhi. “In the research report, we (Niti Aayog) have also recommended that the digital payments data should be disseminated at a disaggregated level,” Watal, the former finance secretary, said. At present, the data on digital payments is available only at an aggregate level, thus making it difficult to analyse the growth and effectiveness of individual digital payment technologies. “We have proposed a classification for disaggregation – according to service provider, payment instruments, payment destination, user, value, area, etc,” he said. “We are working with the RBI towards data dissemination in such a metric format,” he added. The research report on digital payments has been prepared by a committee headed by Watal. Speaking on the occasion, National Payments Corporation of India Managing Director & CEO A P Hota said it is necessary that banks issue debit cards to those customers who still do not own any card. Hota further said Aadhaar seeding of bank accounts should be made mandatory. “Eleven states have migrated MNREGA payments to Aadhaar-based payment system,” Hota said.