Updated

India's Unified Payments Interface, the world's largest real-time payments system, will begin charging fees to merchants after years of processing more than one million transactions every two minutes for free, according to a CNBC newsletter report. The change marks a significant shift in the economics of India's digital payments infrastructure, which has been a cornerstone of the country's financial inclusion push. The move could affect merchant adoption and pricing across India's vast digital commerce ecosystem, which has relied on free UPI transactions to drive rapid growth. The shift also raises questions about how payment providers and fintech platforms operating in India will adjust their business models in response.