00:02very briefly i will make a very broad statement in english on this the reality is that upi
00:14loot is on the reality is that large sums of transaction happen through upi and mr modi
00:24has decided to once again loot you to once again take the money out of your pockets that is what
00:32this whole thing is about if you actually see person to merchant which is commercial upi transaction
00:38will now over 2000 rupees will now bear a cost of 0.4 percent charge which simply put means
00:48third graphic that's the graphic 5000 rupee of upi commercial transaction will attract the charge
00:58of 20 rupees a 10 000 upi merchant payment will invoke will evoke a charge of 40 rupees it is
01:06ironical that this money will be paid by the students by the youth by the laborers and by
01:13the absolute poor and middle class of this country because they are the ones using upi the absolute
01:20richie rich are not scanning barcodes and paying upi the cost will be borne by ordinary middle class
01:27and poor indians and at a time when the country is struggling with high prices and high inflation
01:34instead of bringing relief the government is actually burdening the people with higher costs
01:39of upi and this is being done at the behest of america which is the most shocking and the most
01:45unfortunate part of this entire argument the reality is that american companies have for long lobbied
01:51for mdr to be increased which has so far the merchant discount rate so far has been zero
01:56they have cited the losses to mastercard and visa card their american companies and today mr modi is
02:04complying with what america was saying all along at the cost of ordinary indians
02:08so what is upi upi is nothing but a digital platform that was created by india's institutions
02:13india's banks for digital payments mdr is merchant discount rate a processing fee that is given to
02:19banks and institutions to process this and like i said the new rules will involve a 0.4 percent mdr
02:27on commercial transaction upwards of 2 000 rupees if you see the next slide the kind of money involved
02:34here there are over 604 crore upi commercial transactions that happened in the last fiscal
02:42year which were over 2 000 rupees the total value of that transaction is 66.22 lakh crore rupees that's
02:52the quantum of money that the tax will be levied on that's the quantum of money that has been put
02:58into
02:58the pockets of american companies at the cost of ordinary indians so who are the big beneficiaries
03:03the big beneficiaries are obviously the big upi apps and the biggest upi apps are american companies
03:10between phone pay and google pay they actually own 86 percent of india's upi app market phone pay
03:19is a company owned by america's walmart which has 72 percent ownership google pay of course is a hundred
03:26percent owned google llc company what is interesting however is that there was a phone pay ipo that was
03:34planned in march 2026 that ipo plan was put on hold because valuations dipped below 10 billion dollars
03:41so are indians going to pay for higher valuations of the phone pay ipo because higher mdr means higher
03:49earnings higher earnings means higher valuations and money is being coaxed out from the pockets of indians
03:58who are reeling under unemployment who are reeling under lower wages and who are battling and are saddled with
04:06high prices there's another very silly argument that comes from the government of india and of course
04:15from its supported ecosystem one has to bear the cost of upi the cost of running upi in india at
04:24an
04:24annual basis is 20 700 crore rupees 20 700 crore rupees that's all in the last financial year rbi
04:36paid the government 2.87 lakh crore rupees as surplus transfer seven percent of that money
04:43can bear the cost of running upi so between the government and the rbi they can jolly well run the
04:50cost bear the cost bear the burden of running the upi forget about the fuel taxes that you are paying
04:56forget about the over four lakh crore rupees of profits that bsu banks are sitting on government of
05:02india and the rbi can easily pay 20 700 crore rupees by sparing seven percent of the surplus
05:10transfer that's happening from rbi but what is even more worrisome is the way this was done the way
05:18parliament was lied to the way the finance minister lied to this country in august the modi government
05:25introduced the taxation and other the other laws amendment bill which paved the way for mdr to be
05:32raised on upi transactions what is worrisome and of greater concern is that after this any charge can
05:39now be put on any payment on the 6th of august india's finance minister nirmala sitaraman told parliament
05:46no decision has been taken on mdr on the 10th of august she repeated no framework has been finalized
05:55for mdr the merchant discount rate but on the 14th of september in the middle of the night
06:02a notification is issued and mdr charges levied on commercial transactions of upi which are over 2000
06:10in value this is nothing but an attempt to weaken the upi to give a larger share from upi earnings
06:18to
06:19american companies and this has been done at the behest of america and a very compromised prime
06:27minister is willing to bend under trump's pressure i also want to remind everybody present in this room
06:34and beyond here the foundation of the upi was laid by the congress party was laid by the upa government
06:42in 2007 a payment law was enacted 2008 the npci dbci dbt rolled out happened 2013 there were 7 crore
06:53gas
06:53cylinders that made payments to the npci and in 2014 this was extended to 200 districts but in 2026
07:02a payment that was free a payment that people were being made to shift to because it was free
07:08has suddenly borne the brent of american pressure and a compromised prime minister we have some
07:15questions that we need to be raised from here why are you making ordinary indians suffer higher costs
07:23of upi at a time when they are battling high prices should you not be reducing their burden
07:30why are you making students the youth the poor the middle class pay for higher earnings of american
07:40companies why are you making ordinary indians pay for higher valuations of phone pay
07:48why can you not bear the burden of upi which is merely seven percent of the surplus transfer
07:55that rbi gives you and what is the guarantee that from now on no charge arbitrarily will be introduced
08:04on any payment we have only one demand from this platform and the demand is
08:08that you must roll back this draconian measure you must roll back any mdr increase mdr needs to be zero
08:18because you have made grandiose errors with india's economy you have done everything
08:26to ensure india's economy stays in the doldrums demonetization paralyzed and crippled the indian
08:33economy the indian economy has still not forgotten the scars of demonetization a flawed gst the gabbar singh tax
08:43you were forced and you were coaxed to bring a gst 2.0 and a 3.0 because that is
08:49how flawed your gst was
08:50that is how bad it was for businesses for economy for the common people
08:55you coax people to move to online because you wanted less cash in the economy it's another thing
09:00that the cash in the economy was over 17 lakh crore rupees when demonetization happened today
09:05it is two and a half times of that it is over 41 lakh crore rupees
09:11but you like to complicate things you like to fix what ain't broke and the reality is don't listen
09:18to us listen to the people who support you listen to the voices on the internet in media listen to
09:24your
09:25own allies because people are raising voices people are raising concerns on an higher mdr and what a burden
09:32this is going to be on the common man and how much this is going to again cripple consumption and
09:38the
09:38this is going to be on the Indian economy
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