Maintenance charges will be levied for keeping PhonePe wallet inactive:₹100 will be deducted every three months if not used for 365 days

Digital payment platform PhonePe is preparing to charge a maintenance fee from its users for inactive wallets. According to the company’s new rules, if a user’s PhonePe wallet is not used continuously for 365 days (1 year), it will be considered ‘dormant’ or inactive. A charge of ₹100 will be deducted every quarter from such wallets. The company’s decision is facing strong opposition on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit. Many users have shared screenshots stating that they have started receiving SMS to recharge their wallet or make transactions, so that they can avoid this penalty. Users expressing displeasure on social media platforms On online platforms X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, users shared screenshots about this decision, stating that they are receiving SMS from PhonePe, which mentions recharging the wallet or paying a maintenance fee. Users are more troubled by the fact that this charge is being applied on a quarterly basis (every 3 months) rather than annually, which seems like a penalty to them. If balance is less than ₹100, company will deduct the entire amount According to the company’s terms and conditions, users will be sent alerts multiple times during the 15-day notice period. Even after this, if the wallet is not activated, the fee will be deducted from the wallet balance. If your wallet has a balance of less than ₹100, the company will deduct the entire amount and instead of taking the wallet balance into negative, will make it zero (0). Along with this, PhonePe reserves the right to make changes to its fee policy and impose new charges on existing services. MobiKwik and Airtel Payments Bank also charge fees PhonePe is not the first company in the digital wallet industry to impose inactivity charges. Earlier in 2021, MobiKwik had announced levying an annual “wallet maintenance charge” of ₹100 to ₹140 on its inactive users.
Apart from this, Airtel Payments Bank also lists maintenance fees for inactive wallets in its charge schedule. This makes it clear that inactivity penalty is becoming a common practice in the digital wallet business model. Wallet usage decreased with the advent of UPI Due to the rapid growth of UPI in the market, people use wallets very little for daily payments. Because of this, small amounts of money remain lying in many users’ wallets. Tech companies argue that to keep these wallets active, they have to continuously spend money on infrastructure, compliance (following regulations), and security. To recover this expenditure, companies charge inactivity fees. However, users are considering PhonePe’s large user base and the method of collecting ₹100 on a quarterly basis to be quite aggressive.