HIGHLIGHTS
- Google Pay is now charging a convenience fee and it’s applicable on utility payments for electricity, water, fuel bills, etc.
- There will be no convenience fee charges on UPI payments you make to others.
Google Pay (GPay) and PhonePe are the leading Unified Payment Interface (UPI) apps. Google Pay has almost 37 percent of market share in India. Previously, the platform was already taking ₹3 convenience fee charges with mobile recharges and now it includes paying bills using debit and credit card on the app along with some applicable taxes. Here’s everything you need to know.
Google Pay taking convenience fee charges
According to Economic Times, Google Pay (GPay) will charge 0.5 percent according to GST on bill payments that you’ll make with debit and credit cards. This includes payments for electricity, water bills, fuel bills, etc. However, the convenience fee would change based on different factors like payment method and amount.
Google Pay is already taking ₹3 convenience fee charges for mobile recharge and now it’s applicable on payment bills for debit/credit cards. According to PWC analysis, it costs UPI companies about 0.25 percent of the transaction value for processing. However, the processing costs (including additional charges) are now transferred to the user as a revenue-generation strategy.
Google also claimed that “The recent applicable convenience fee is always presented before completing a payment in the Google Pay app”. Also, you can review the convenience fees later by going through the Transaction History. Apart from that, if the transition fails while paying bill payments, you’ll get a refund within 24-48 hrs of working days. On the other hand, Google Pay isn’t taking any convenience fee charges when you make UPI payments to someone, so no need to worry about paying extra charges.
PhonePe and other UPI payments also charge a convenience fee
PhonePe and other UPI payments like AmazonPay and Paytm also take fees as convenience charges when making bill payments using debit/credit cards. As per ET, Paytm takes Rs 1 to Rs 40 as a convenience charge for utility bill payments. Additionally, AmazonPay is also taking convenience charges as a 1-3 percentage on bill payments using debit/credit cards including GST.
But the good thing is that any of the UPI payment apps are not charging convenience fees while making UPI payments to others, so you can consider this as an alternative.
