India, June 16 -- MDR or no MDR: that is the big question for India's payments apps and the UPI frontrunners - PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm - or even the likes of CRED, Groww, Flipkart's Super.Money, Navi and others which are looking to build their own UPI empires.

Earlier this month, speculation emerged that the Indian government is close to bringing in a merchant discount rate (MDR) regime or a commission structure on UPI transactions for these players, especially for high-value payments. This built up enthusiasm for the future of Paytm and MobiKwik.

However, on June 11, the Finance Ministry firmly denied these reports, calling them "false, baseless, and misleading," and reiterated its commitment to promoting digital payments without...