No debit card swipe fee for payment up to ₹2,000

Last week, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) brought in several changes to MDR for debit card transactions which will be effective from 1 January. According to its latest circular on MDR, for merchants with a turnover of up to ~20 lakh, MDR has been capped at 0.4% if the transaction involves physical infrastructure such as a swipe machine. If the transaction is conducted via a QR code, MDR has been further reduced to 0.3%, subject to a maximum of ~200 per transaction.

For merchants whose annual turnover exceeds ~20 lakh, MDR has been capped at 0.9% for swipe machine-based transactions and 0.8% for QR code-based sales, subject to a maximum of Rs1,000 per transaction.

Noting the growing trend in the volume of digital transactions, Prasad said that the value of digital transactions during April-september 2017 was ~2.18 trillion. This amount is estimated to reach Rs4.37 trillion for the current financial year, he added.

Prasad hailed the decision as “very crucial” to the government’s aim to grow India’s digital economy to $1 trillion by 2022.

Videocon Industries Ltd. welcomed the move saying local production will get a boost. “It will also encourage foreign consumer durable companies to manufacture products in India rather than import them, and go a long way in fulfilling the goal of making the country a global manufacturing hub for a wide range of electronic goods. However, it is too early to assess the impact of the customs duty hike on product pricing,” said Abhijit Kotnis, chief manufacturing officer, Videocon, in a note.

MS Mani, partner, Deloitte India said the move was unexpected so close to the union budget for 2018-19. “The customs duty increase appears to improve the case for manufacturing in India. However, there could be short-term price increases for some of the products unless there is a reduction in the GST rates for such products,” said Mani.

Besides incentivising local production, the customs duty revision will also enable the authorities to garner more revenue, said Pratik Jain, partner and leader of indirect taxes, PWC India.

GST revenue for the month of October (collected in November) had slipped to ~83,346 crore, lower than the ₹92,000 crore in had collected for the previous month. allowed her to live as per her wishes. The bench reserved its judgment in the case on November 29. minister M Venkaiah Naidu told Parliament the objective was not only to protect certain forms of unauthorised developments but also to provide for “opportunity to the government agencies to finalise the norms, policy guidelines and feasible strategies as well as the orderly implementation of the plan in this regard.”