Street vendors might reduce UPI use if merchant discount rate is introduced, finds study

Chennai More than half of the street vendors surveyed across 14 States and Union Territories said they would reduce their acceptance of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments if the proposed merchant discount rate (MDR) was introduced, as per a study by the Indian School of Business. Conducted between September 24 and October 10, the survey covered 722 vendors across 64 urban local bodies in Chandigarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana.

Of the respondents, 64.8% were men and 35.2% women, said the authors of the report, Prasanna Tantri, Anand Sudhakaran, and Mohan Ramanath. About 67% of those surveyed accepted UPI payments, while around 70% said their payments to suppliers exceeded ₹2,000, potentially exposing them to the proposed 0.4% charge.

The proportion of vendors who said they would reduce UPI acceptance was 53% in Tier-I cities and 45% each in Tier-II and Tier-III locations.