The Great Indian Payment Shuffle: How Merchants Are Gaming the System India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is expanding rapidly, but a new layer of complexity has emerged with merchants finding creative ways to avoid merchant discount rates (MDRs).
In October 2026, regulations will introduce a 0. 4% MDR on UPI payments above Rs 2,000 made to large merchants.
The most obvious example is the "Rs 2,000 trick," where a merchant receives three separate payments of Rs 2,000 each instead of one lump sum payment of Rs 6,000.