Inside India newsletter: The world’s largest real-time payments system will no longer be free for all

Hello, this is Priyanka Salve, writing to you from Mumbai. Welcome to the latest edition of "Inside India" — your one-stop destination for stories and developments from the world's fastest-growing large economy.The world's largest payments system by volumes, India's unified payment interface, popularized cashless transactions in the country by offering free services for all. That's about to change. Starting next month, merchants will need to pay a fee of 0.4% for accepting payments higher than $20.While the government has defended the move, confident it will not hurt India's march towards a cashless economy, critics disagree. Any thoughts on today's newsletter? Share them with the team. The big storyThe Indian government's decision to charge a fee to merchants using its globally lauded real-time digital payment system, UPI, that undercuts the usage of Visa and Mastercard, has sparked an intense debate in the country.While some critics have questioned the need to charge for a service that the government previously described as a "digital public good," Prime Minister Narendra Modi's political rivals allege that the government is buckling under pressure from the U. S.On Tuesday, the N...