Govt. of India wants a hardcore ‘behavioral change’ for all Indians when it comes to digital transactions. And for that, very soon, QR Code enabled UPI payments can be made compulsory for all shops and merchants, across India.
This means, that whenever a customer wants to make a payment at a merchant or a Kirana store or any other shop, he/she will get a QR code option by default.
Will this work?
QR Code Based UPI Payment Will Be Compulsory?
Govt. wants more and more B2C payments to be made digitally, and to implement this, a major decision has been almost finalized: Every merchant and shop in India will be asked to display a QR code, by law.
That QR code will be linked with UPI based payment mechanism.
Hence, a user having any UPI supported wallet or app can just scan the QR code, and make the payment.
The objective here is to enable more and more digital transactions and to provide incentives for the same.
A Govt. official said, “We are looking at incentives for both, the shopkeeper or the restaurant owner as well as consumers,”
QR Code Will Be Placed In Every Invoice?
There is another objective and angle to this: More GST collection.
It seems that GST Council has approved this plan of making UPI based QR Code compulsory, and now, the issue is being discussed by NPCI, the nodal authority for all digital payments in India.
And for this reason, the rule of mandatory QR Code linked with invoices can be extended to all invoices as well.
In case that happens, then customers who are paying the invoice can easily scan the QR Code, and make the payment.
If more and more transactions are done digitally, then tax collection will automatically increase.
Reports indicate that there will be a threshold of transactional value, beyond which establishments will be asked to mandatory put QR Code enabled UPI payment mechanism.
Will This Work?
There will be hiccups and initial resistance, but in the long term, it should work. Officials are giving examples of China, where such a rule was applied, and gradually, shoppers had to be educated that they can make payments via cash as well.
In India, with the explosion of smartphone usage, and cheap data, mandatory QR-code in every shop for enabling more digital transactions does sound like a good plan.
But considering that UPI-related, and digital frauds are increasing, there has to be a safety mechanism as well, which makes it fraud-proof.
We will keep you updated, as we receive more inputs.
Also Read: UPI Is No Longer Free – Upto Rs 5 Per UPI Transaction Will Be Charged From You
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