Customers as well as merchants will not have to pay any transactional charges on payments through debit card, BHIM, UPI or Aadhaar-enabled payment systems from 1st of January, 2018, reported PTI.

In a tweet, Financial Services Secretary Rajeev Kumar said, "Happy Digital 2018. Dec Qtr BHIM txn rise 86% to 145.6 M with value of 13174 Cr. Further impetus to Digital Payments, Govt 2 reimburse charges for txns upto Rs 2000 on debit cards/ BHIM. Zero charges on merchants. Go Digital, Embrace Transparency."

In last month's Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it was approved that the government would bare the burden of merchant discount rate (MDR) for 2 years, starting 1st January, 2018.