The current UPI framework appears financially unsustainable and risks undermining critical investments in cybersecurity, fraud prevention and network infrastructure, due to inadequate subsidies, the Standing Committee on Finance told Parliament on Wednesday. In response, the government said it was currently looking at two ways to move forward with making the UPI platform self-sustaining. The Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) is a charge the payment ecosystem such as banks, payments processors, and gateways levy on merchants. Currently, while these charges are levied on most debit card and all credit card transactions, UPI and RuPay debit card transactions were exempted from this charge in 2020. Enabling law in placeIt further took note of the fact that legislative amendments had now been made to empower the government to reimpose an MDR charge on UPI transactions.