Shares of Payment aggregators, One97 Communications (Paytm parent), Pine Labs, and OneMobiKwik Systems fell up to 10% on Thursday, October 8, after sources told CNBC-TV18 that there has been a request made to defer the rollout of the Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) by a few months. The proposal is under consideration, according to sources.
Paytm shares are the top losers on the Nifty 500 index, currently trading 10% lower, while shares of MobiKwik are down 7% in early trade on Thursday. Pine Labs shares are down 2.6% and are already below their issue price.
Sources told CNBC-TV18 that traders and industry associations have sought deferment of the MDR rollout from October 15 this year to January 2027. The requests have been received by both the Finance Ministry and the National Payments Council of India (NPCI).
Merchant bodies have flagged the potential impact of MDR on small retailers and MSMEs, according to the sources, who added that trade bodies had earlier sought deferment, a higher exemption threshold and a phased rollout.
The UPI MDR was said to kick-in from October 15, where a 0.4% MDR was to apply on Person-to-Merchant (P2M) transactions above ₹2,000. The MDR is capped at ₹300 for transactions of ₹75,000 and above, and there is also a ₹5 fixed rate for select categories.
The news comes on the day that brokerage firm Goldman Sachs raised its price target on Paytm to ₹2,070 from ₹1,500 earlier. Goldman Sachs had stated that there are multiple tailwinds in place for Paytm and that the risk-reward is also favourable for the stock.
Shares of Paytm are now down 10% at ₹1,558. This is the biggest single-day fall for the stock since February 1.
Shares of Pine Labs are down 4% at ₹170.9, while shares of MobiKwik are down 8.3% at ₹235.8. The stock has now trimmed its year-to-date advance down to 2.5%.
(Newsbreak By Ritu Singh)