India has proposed bringing back merchant fees for a limited set of Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, transactions, marking a potential end to the zero-fee framework that has been in place since January 2020. The government submitted the Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill to the Lok Sabha on Aug. 4-5, seeking changes to Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. Under the proposal, banks and payment service providers would be allowed to charge a merchant discount rate of 5 to 7 basis points on specific UPI payments. The fee would apply only to large merchants with annual turnover of roughly 10 million to 15 million rupees, and only for transactions above 2,000 rupees. Person-to-person transfers and transactions involving small merchants would remain free. The government has also set aside 20 billion rupees in subsidies for fiscal 2027. A parliamentary standing committee had earlier said the zero-fee model was not sustainable and that a viable revenue source was needed. The update was cited by CryptoBriefing and carried by Techub.

India has created a crypto task force under the MAC framework to target darknet narcotics trade and illicit money flows, using the NIDAAN database, blockchain forensics, and inter-agency coordination.

India's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance met Binance, WazirX, and ZebPay today for a closed-door hearing on virtual digital asset regulation, with hopes for a 'Crypto Tax 2.0' reform.

India attracted $340 billion in crypto inflows from June 2024 to June 2025, per OECD, ranking first in Asia. Despite harsh taxes, the country has 119M crypto users. On July 2, Parliament quizzed the RBI on crypto policy for the first time. Three regulatory paths lie ahead.