UPI Credit Card Linking – The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 9th June 2022 has proposed linking credit cards with the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platforms.

It was announced by the RBI governor Shaktikanta Das while making his monetary policy speech on Wednesday and the integration will first begin with the RuPay credit cards. 

Earlier UPI payments could be done only via bank accounts but now it will be possible for users to make UPI payments with their credit cards.

Users can link their credit cards governed by RuPay with popular UPI applications such as Google Pay, Paytm, PhonePe, MobiKwik, BHIM, BharatPe, and many others.

At first, users can link only RuPay credit cards to UPI platforms. Both the RuPay network and UPI are managed by the same organization – the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). 

UPI credit card payments will not only be beneficial for users but for small merchants also. Because of the expense of the POS machines, most small merchants cannot afford them.

It will also be easy for customers to make UPI payments with their RuPay credit cards even if they do not have the credit card in their pocket while making payments at the merchant QR codes.

No charges for using credit cards for UPI payments has announced yet. Banks or lenders could charge a nominal fee for linking credit cards to UPI platforms.

Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) has been capped at zero for payments through UPI. MDR is a fee that bank charges on a merchant for accepting payments from their customers via credit or debit cards.