PhonePe will now charge upto Rs 2 per transaction for mobile recharges

Walmart-owned digital payments app PhonePe will now charge processing fees for every transaction. This means that you will no longer be able to recharge your phone (above Rs. 50) without shelling out a little extra money for every time. The company has said that it would charge fees in the range of Re 1 to Rs 2 per transaction for mobile recharges for value above Rs 50. PhonePe is the first payments' app to have started charging for transactions

“On recharges, we are running a very small-scale experiment where a few users are paying for mobile recharges. Recharges below Rs 50 are not charged, recharges between Rs 50 and Rs 100 are charged Re 1 and above Rs 100 are charged Rs 2. Essentially, as a part of the experiment, a majority of users are either not paying anything or paying Re 1,” a PhonePe spokesperson told PTI.

PhonePe is charging processing fees for transactions valued above Rs 50 including UPI, credit card, debit card and wallet. If you don’t spend upto Rs 50, you will not be charged any amount by the digital app. Like other payments apps, PhonePe will also begin charging processing fees for payments made through credit cards. PhonePe is one of the most popular, widely-used payments app in India along with Paytm and Google Pay. It has recorded over 165-crore UPI transactions on its platform in September, clocking over 40 per cent share among the app segment, the PTI report stated.

“We are not the only player or payment platform charging a fee. Charging a small fee on bill payments is now a standard industry practice and is done by other biller websites and payment platforms also. We charge a processing fee (called a convenience fee on other platforms) on payments with credit cards only,” the spokesperson added.

For the unversed, just like Paytm and Google Pay, PhonePe can be used to transfer money with BHIM UPI, manage multiple bank accounts, check account balance, save beneficiaries across multiple bank accounts like SBI, HDFC, ICICI & 140+ banks. Recharge prepaid mobile numbers like Jio, Vodafone, Idea, Airtel etc, recharge DTH like Tata Sky, Airtel Direct, Sun Direct, Videocon etc, pay various bills and more. You can also buy or renew insurance policies using PhonePe.