Payments
UPI MDR of 0.4% on big tickets starts 15 October
Merchants face fresh cost on payments above ₹2,000, raising the risk of cash shift at kirana and organised tills alike.
Kabir Menon · 19 Sep · 4 min read
Search the desk
15 stories for “upi”
Opinion · Retail
Why festive capacity and MDR will decide October margins
Hiring blitzes and new payment costs land together just as festive tickets swell; the shop floor will sort winners fast.
The Desk · 17 Sep · 4 min read
Payments
Govt locks 0.4% UPI MDR above ₹2,000 from 15 October
Merchants pay the charge, consumers stay free; small retailers and petrol pumps scramble for exemptions before the festive rush.
Kabir Menon · 17 Sep · 4 min read
Retail
Zudio opens 23,000 sq ft store at Gurugram M2K Corporate Park
Two-floor value fashion anchor for Trent brand brings apparel density to a mixed-use hub and tests corporate-park footfall.
Meera Iyer · 2 Sep · 4 min read
Opinion · Payments
The free-UPI era was always borrowed time
Charging merchants was inevitable once volumes turned the rails into critical national infrastructure.
The Desk · 22 Aug · 4 min read
Payments
Parliament opens door to UPI merchant fees
Lawmakers clear the way for charges on shop payments, ending the long free ride that powered India’s digital commerce boom.
Kabir Menon · 22 Aug · 4 min read
Payments
WhatsApp Pay more than doubles UPI volumes, enters top-eight apps
July tally hits 167.89 million transactions worth Rs 12,957 crore after NPCI onboarding curbs were lifted.
Kabir Menon · 21 Aug · 4 min read
Retail
The kirana did not get digitised. It got a QR and a delivery problem.
Five years of "empower the unorganised retailer" left a sticker on the glass and the order going to a dark store. Here is what actually changed.
Meera Iyer · 19 Aug · 7 min read
Payments
Razorpay trained a payments model. The interesting part is who it already sits inside.
Vulcan is being sold as India's first foundation model for payments. The real story is routing, fraud, and an 8–10% lift in success rates at merchants that cannot afford a failed UPI ping.
Kabir Menon · 19 Aug · 8 min read
Platforms
WhatsApp is still India's real storefront. The catalogs just got less shy.
40% year-on-year growth in WhatsApp-led commerce is not a Meta slide. It is how a brand sells when the customer will not download a fourth shopping app.
Rhea Kapoor · 16 Aug · 5 min read
Payments
PhonePe is a payments company that wants to be a switch. Those are different jobs.
UPI made a giant. The next decade is whether that giant is a surface, a lender, or the rails themselves.
Kabir Menon · 12 Aug · 7 min read
Opinion · SaaS
Zoho keeps winning the Indian mid-market by refusing to look like SaaS.
While coastal startups sold seats in dollars, a quietly bundled OS ate GST, inventory, and the inbox of the company that actually ships.
Rhea Kapoor · 11 Aug · 6 min read
Platforms
ONDC had a quiet year. That might be the good news.
The protocol did not kill Amazon. It also did not die. India's public digital commerce layer is settling into the unglamorous job: being a pipe some apps use.
Rhea Kapoor · 11 Aug · 6 min read
Ecommerce
Meesho already won the customer everyone else is still pitching.
Value commerce is not a tier-2 story. It is the majority of Indian ecommerce, and it does not care about your 10-minute milk.
Meera Iyer · 10 Aug · 6 min read
Opinion · Payments
The next UPI war is credit. It will not look like credit.
The ping will feel the same. The balance sheet will not. Every app with a QR is auditioning to be a lender.
Kabir Menon · 8 Aug · 6 min read