Fintech Brief — September 26, 2026
Today’s Top Stories
1. Sitharaman calls the UPI MDR “purely professional” as NPCI reveals most merchants won’t pay it
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday rejected the Opposition’s claim that the 0.4% merchant discount rate on UPI payments above ₹2,000 was adopted under external pressure, calling it “absolutely baseless” and describing the decision as a professional one taken jointly by NPCI, payments banks and merchant banks. She stressed the MDR is not a tax, cess or surcharge and the collections will not accrue to the government, and — per her SBI conclave remarks — a dedicated fund for promoting UPI among small merchants will get 5% of total MDR collections. NPCI’s own damage-control math: 75% of India’s 6 crore digital merchants have never recorded a single transaction above ₹2,000, and only about 10% of overall UPI transaction value risks the fee being passed to consumers. A finance-ministry official also indicated the GST Council is likely to consider relief on the 18% GST levied on MDR — a hidden surcharge on the fee itself that merchants will otherwise eat. Meanwhile traders’ associations are calling a “No UPI Day” on October 2, asking members to cover their QR codes — to be clear, UPI will keep working that day; this is a voluntary protest. With 19 days to go before the fee kicks in, the real consumer question stays unanswered: which merchants above the exemption line absorb the charge and which quietly pass it on.
2. RBI quietly drained at least $10 billion of rupee liquidity through forex swaps
The Reserve Bank of India has carried out currency swaps worth at least $10 billion in recent weeks to pull surplus cash out of the banking system, selling dollars to banks for rupees with reversals scheduled in one-to-six-month tranches. The context: strong foreign inflows had pushed surplus banking liquidity to a record ₹11 trillion earlier this month, and the central bank has since used bond sales plus these sell-buy swaps to bring the surplus down to ₹4.92 trillion by September 21 — a 55% reduction. IDFC First Bank’s chief economist estimates total sell-buy swaps may reach $10–15 billion maturing within this fiscal year. Separately, RBI Deputy Governor Rohit Jain said banks should deploy the flood of FCNR(B) inflows — $143.6 billion raised under the special swap facility — as festive-season credit demand strengthens. Why a payments newsletter cares: liquidity conditions set the floor for the lending rates every fintech NBFC and digital lender borrows at, and the record FCNR(B) mobilisation is the same money now being recycled into credit.
3. Snapdeal parent AceVector’s IPO opens flat while IPO-bound Navi’s losses balloon 269%
Snapdeal parent AceVector’s ₹420-crore IPO opened Friday to a muted 23% day-one subscription, after raising ₹189 crore from anchor investors at a valuation around ₹1,741 crore. The offer is ₹287 crore fresh plus an offer-for-sale by SoftBank and Nexus Venture Partners; co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal are not selling. The fundamentals tell a turn-around-in-progress story: FY26 net loss narrowed 64% to ₹45.5 crore while operating revenue rose 29.2% to ₹510.3 crore. In sharper contrast, IPO-bound fintech Navi disclosed that its FY26 net loss widened 269% to ₹466 crore even as operating revenue grew 16.2% to ₹2,981.7 crore — with policyholder-related expenses in its insurance arm more than doubling to ₹199.7 crore. Two very different fintech listing stories: a retrenched e-commerce firm squeezing toward profitability, and a Sachin Bansal-led lender growing revenue while losses compound. Widening losses at a digital lender usually trace back to credit costs — the risk that lands on customers first.
4. VCs hit the exit: ₹513 crore of BlueStone and ₹202 crore of FirstCry change hands in bulk deals
Early backers are cashing out of listed consumer-fintech-adjacent names in size. Accel India and 360 ONE Group sold over 4% of jewellery marketplace BlueStone for ₹513 crore via bulk deals, while TPG, through NewQuest Asia Investments III, sold its entire 2.21% FirstCry stake — 1.2 crore shares at ₹175.15 apiece — for ₹202 crore, with Goldman Sachs Investments Mauritius picking up 68 lakh of those shares — both on September 25. Add Accel, Prosus and GSF already part-exiting through recent IPO flows, and the pattern is unmistakable: venture capital is harvesting the 2024–26 listing window while retail absorbs the supply. For consumers tracking these brands, secondary-market exits don’t change products overnight, but they do shift the pressure on management toward margin discipline — which historically shows up as fees, delivery charges, or tighter discounts.
Data point: UPI processed 24.51 billion transactions worth ₹29.82 trillion in August 2026, up 22% — the volume base the October 15 MDR starts monetising.
Curated by the CashlessConsumer daily brief agent. All amounts as reported by linked sources.