Authors
A self-taught social media maverick, Saurabh realised the power of social media early on and began following and analysing false narratives and ‘fake news’ even before he entered the field of fact-checking professionally. He is fascinated with the visual medium, technology and politics, and at Newschecker, where he leads social media strategy, he is a jack of all trades. With a burning desire to uncover the truth behind events that capture people's minds and make sense of the facts in the noisy world of social media, he fact checks misinformation in Hindi and English at Newschecker.
The Quint, ZEE Business, Jagran and several other media organizations published reports claiming that starting 1 January 2021, UPI transactions will be chargeable.
https://www.thequint.com/coronavirus/faq/new-rules-in-india-from-1-january-2021
Fact Check/Verification
After the coronavirus outbreak took its toll in India, there has been a surge in the UPI transactions as it went past 2 billion transactions per month. As the government goes about promoting digital payments, there is a rumour doing the rounds that the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a joint initiative of the RBI and IBA and a leading organization for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India, has decided to levy additional charges on UPI transactions. As per the statistics released by the NPCI, a total of 2,210.23 million transactions valuing 3,90,999.15 crore were made in the month of November alone. UPI transactions enjoy a giant share of the total payments made in the country. The active UPI users in the country are reported to have crossed the 100 million mark in 2019. These statistics suggest that UPI has become a product that has a direct influence on the financial activities of millions of Indian families. If the claims made by the aforementioned news and media outlets stand true, this decision could change the way online transactions are undertaken in India.
To check the authenticity of the claim, we first checked the official Twitter handle of NPCI where we found a tweet that terms this claim ‘fake’. The tweet reads, “NPCI would like to clarify that the news about UPI transactions being charged from 1st Jan, 21 is completely #fake. Our press release dated Nov 5 2020, has no correlation with pricing or charges whatsoever.” Along with the tweet, the NPCI has also shared a press release which throws more light on the provision of a 30% volume cap for Third-Party App Providers.
When we searched further, we also found a fact-check by the fact-checking arm of the PIB that furthers the above clarification issued by the NPCI.
When we searched the official website of the NPCI, we also found a press release that further clarifies that no charge will be levied on the UPI transactions. The press release dated January 1, 2020, reads, “National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said that the news about UPI transactions being charged from January 1, 2021 is incorrect and has requested everyone not to fall prey to such incorrect information. NPCI has urged all the customers to not believe in such stories and continue to perform uninterrupted and convenient UPI transactions.”
The Quint has updated its report and the part claiming ‘charges will be levied on UPI transactions starting January 1’ has been removed. ZEE Business has also published another report in which they have termed the aforementioned claim ‘incorrect’. Notably, none of the organizations who furthered this claim, have clarified that their initial reports claiming ‘Additional charges to be levied on UPI transactions’ were incorrect.
Conclusion
Therefore it is evident from our findings that the reports published by The Quint, ZEE Biz & Jagaran are ‘False’ and the NPCI is not levying any charges on UPI transactions.
Result: False
Sources
Twitter handle of the NPCI: https://twitter.com/NPCI_NPCI
Press release issued by the NPCI: https://www.npci.org.in/PDF/npci/press-releases/2021/Statement-by-NPCI-January-1-2021.pdf
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Authors
A self-taught social media maverick, Saurabh realised the power of social media early on and began following and analysing false narratives and ‘fake news’ even before he entered the field of fact-checking professionally. He is fascinated with the visual medium, technology and politics, and at Newschecker, where he leads social media strategy, he is a jack of all trades. With a burning desire to uncover the truth behind events that capture people's minds and make sense of the facts in the noisy world of social media, he fact checks misinformation in Hindi and English at Newschecker.
