UPDATE 1 — India postpones UPI payment fee rollout until after Diwali festival

(Recasts first paragraph, adds details throughout) By Ashwin Manikandan MUMBAI, Oct 13 (Reuters) — India has postponed the rollout of a fee on large payments via its popular Unified Payments Interface platform until after the Diwali festival, the National Payments Corporation of India said on Tuesday. The 0.4% charge for merchants on transactions exceeding 2,000 rupees ($21) was scheduled to take effect on October 15. The deferral is "keeping in mind the festive season", and the fee will be implemented immediately after the Hindu festival on a date that will be notified separately, NPCI said in a statement. Diwali, which will be celebrated across India on November 8, typically marks the peak of consumer spending in Asia's third-largest economy, with shoppers splurging on cars, clothes and home appliances. The proposed fee, which would end more than six years of zero-cost UPI payments in India, had drawn opposition from retailers and ​a large broker. UPI is used by over 500 million people ⁠to buy everything from cups of tea to iPhones. Walmart's PhonePe and Alphabet's Google Pay had about 80% market ​share by value of UPI transactions in August. The fee would have coincided with Ind