Paytm Shares Nosedive 10 Per Cent After FinMin Clarifies No MDR On UPI

Paytm Share Price Today: Shares of Paytm’s parent company (One 97 Communications Ltd) crashed over 10 per cent to trade at an early low of Rs 864.4 apiece on the NSE. The stock has crashed consistently for three straight sessions, declining nearly 11 per cent since June 9. Paytm shares declined after the Ministry of Finance dismissed claims regarding the imposition of a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR).

The Finance Ministry wrote in a post on social media platform X that there are speculations on the imposition of the Merchant Discount Rate on financial transactions conducted using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

“Speculation and claims that the MDR will be charged on UPI transactions are completely false, baseless, and misleading. Such baseless and sensation-creating speculations cause needless uncertainty, fear, and suspicion among our citizens. The government remains fully committed to promoting digital payments via UPI,” the Finance Ministry said in a post.

Banks and payment service providers get a fee when they process financial transactions, this fee is called MDR. Notably, zero MDR has been in effect since January 2020 as a part of the government’s push to promote digital payments.

Earlier in March, the Payments Council of India sought the introduction of MDR on UPI and RuPay debit card transactions. The council recommended the imposition of a 0.3 per cent MDR on UPI payments for large merchants and a nominal MDR on RuPay debit card transactions.

According to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the UPI system processed as many as 18.68 billion transactions. These transactions were cumulatively worth Rs 25.14 lakh crore rupees, growing from Rs 23.95 lakh crore transacted in 17.89 billion transactions in April.

Paytm Share Price History

In the past year, shares of Paytm have rallied over 137 per cent on the NSE. However, on a year-to-date basis shares of the company have slipped over 6 per cent. In the last five days, the fintech company’s stock has slipped nearly 4 per cent.

At the time of writing, shares of Paytm traded lower by 6.09 per cent at Rs 902 apiece on the NSE.