Fintech Giant Imposes Fees on Dormant Wallet Accounts
India’s leading digital payments platform, PhonePe, has implemented an inactivity fee of ₹100 per quarter (inclusive of GST) for its wallet users. The fee will only target wallets that have recorded no financial transactions for 365 consecutive days. The company hopes this step will encourage users to actively transact using their wallet balances or close unused digital accounts.
Key Conditions and Scope of Wallet Inactivity
To protect consumers, the fee is designed to be deducted solely from the existing wallet balance and cannot result in a negative balance. Furthermore, standard application activities such as simple logins, peer-to-peer UPI transfers, or mobile recharges funded by bank accounts do not count as wallet transactions. To prevent the deduction, users must execute an active transaction utilizing the wallet itself, such as merchant payments or wallet top-ups.
