Retailers Against UPI, Startup IPO Sprint & More

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Sep 29, 2026 - 08:11
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Retailers Against UPI, Startup IPO Sprint & More
Retailers Against UPI, Startup IPO Sprint & More

UPI’s MDR Showdown

Indian retailers are set to stage a nationwide “No UPI Day” on October 2. Up in arms against the proposed MDR on UPI payments, industry bodies are flagging margin erosion and ₹9,000 Cr in annual costs. So, can the retailers and the government find a middle ground?

MDR At The Doorstep: The Centre recently unveiled a new framework that allows a 0.4% MDR on P2M UPI payments above ₹2,000, capped at ₹300. The new regime will come into effect from October 15. This ends the zero MDR regime, which has been in place since 2020. While the government says only 4% of merchant transactions will be affected, retailers argue otherwise.

Retailers Vs MDR: Industry bodies oppose the new MDR regime because it threatens business viability in sectors operating on thin margins. With the festive season just around the corner, mobile phone retailers and FMCG distributors also argue that the levy could create an annual burden of thousands of crores, squeeze working capital, incentivise transaction splitting and inflate consumer prices.

SC Refuses To Intervene: The retailer banded together as the Supreme Court refused to grant an interim stay on the MDR rollout, terming the matter “more technical than legal”. However, the SC bench questioned the government over the levy, asking whether the MDR constitutes a tax, fee, or commercial charge. The apex court has also issued notices seeking responses from the Centre, RBI, and NPCI within four weeks.  

Ecosystem Economics: Even as the matter continues to evolve, fintech platforms and banks maintain that re-introducing MDR is essential to fund India’s digital payment ecosystem, which costs an estimated ₹21,000 Cr annually. With rising hardware costs, cybersecurity upgrades and AI-driven fraud prevention tools, fintechs will be banking on MDR to create a potential ₹13,000 Cr to ₹15,000 Cr in fresh revenue pipeline. 

While payments players have much to gain, why are retailers not so keen on MDR? Let’s find out…

From The Editor’s Desk

📈 Moneyview IPO Subscribed 98X

💰 Ola Electric Eyes ₹1,000 Cr

  • The EV maker’s board has cleared a proposal to raise up to ₹1,000 Cr via a right issue of partly paid-up equity shares. The board will now decide on the timeline, price of the issue, rights entitlement ratio and record date.
  • While the OEM’s board has already given its nod for raising up to ₹1,500 Cr, it remains to be seen whether the EV maker will raise the remaining ₹500 Cr. This is the second major fundraise by the company this year. It had raised ₹780 Cr via a QIP in June.
  • The development comes as Ola Electric is stepping up its investments in its EV, battery cell manufacturing, and battery energy storage system businesses. It appears to increasingly be betting on the latter two of these verticals for long-term growth. 

🎮 ED Attaches Gameskraft Assets 

  • The Enforcement Directorate has attached movable and immovable assets worth ₹443 Cr in a money laundering probe involving the gaming platform. With this, the agency has so far seized assets worth ₹2,843 Cr in the case.
  • ED alleges that the proceeds from the gaming operations were routed to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks, and subsequently invested in various financial assets and properties to conceal their origins.
  • The ED alleges that the platform deployed bots against users without their knowledge, causing them to lose money. Gameskraft also allegedly restricted withdrawals and pushed users to keep betting despite losses.

🤖 OpenAI’s Safety Fiasco

  • The AI juggernaut has paused training and evaluation of its most capable models. This comes after an internal research agent bypassed internet restrictions and contacted an external chatbot through a gap in the training environment’s DNS controls. 
  • The agent was assigned a task to identify a person from a public blog post. But when ordinary searches failed, the agent discovered that the DNS resolver could reach external services and used that channel to send questions to a third-party chatbot.
  • The pause adds weight to recent calls from OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Dario Amodei of Anthropic. The duo recently called for pacing AI model development, international cooperation, common safety standards and incident-reporting protocols. 

🛒 Amazon India’s FY26 Show

  • Amazon’s India businesses delivered a mixed performance in FY26. While revenues of its seller services, retail and pay businesses continued to scale, cumulative losses magnified in the fiscal under review.
  • Amazon Retail’s net loss widened 2.9X YoY to ₹1,158 Cr in FY26, while the top line zoomed nearly 50% YoY to ₹3,065 Cr. Meanwhile, Amazon Seller Services’ operating revenue rose 15% YoY to ₹34,966 Cr, while net loss narrowed 4.5% YoY to ₹389.9 Cr.
  • The numbers come as Amazon is aggressively investing to scale its quick commerce arm, local logistics network, dark store network, and AI capabilities to secure its foothold across both urban hubs and tier-2+ markets.

🚜 Balwaan Krishi Bags ₹100 Cr

  • The agritech startup has raised around $10 Mn in its Series B round led by First Bridge India to expand domestic manufacturing capacity, strengthen dealer and service network in Southern India and develop new farm equipment. 
  • Founded in 2016, Balwaan Krishi makes agricultural equipment for Indian farming conditions. The startup sells through a network of 800 dealers and ecommerce platforms, with 4 Lakh farmers using its equipment. 
  • Balwaan’s fundraise comes amid broader investor interest in the Indian agritech sector. From Waycool to Arya.ago, new-age tech ventures have raised big bucks in recent months to make the fragmented farm markets more productive and scalable.

Inc42 Markets

Inc42 Markets

Inc42 Startup Spotlight

Can Yaanendriya Build An Indigenous Navigation Stack?

Most autonomous machines depend on a handful of sensors and controllers to perform reliably. But most of these navigation electronics have to be imported, are often costly and difficult to customise. Yaanendriya is solving this gap by building these products in India. 

Indigenous Control Layer: Founded in 2023, Yaanendriya develops sensor, navigation and control systems for autonomous machines. Its flagship product, Syncore U1, is a compact navigation controller that supports real-time stabilisation and control. The system is compatible with PX4, ArduPilot and custom firmware, making it adaptable to different architectures.

Navigation Beyond GPS: Yaanendriya also develops GNSS modules, attitude-heading reference systems and other navigation hardware. Its systems are designed for drones, ground robots, spacecraft and underwater vehicles, including operations where satellite-navigation signals are weak, unavailable or deliberately disrupted.

It is also working on radio-based positioning and high-precision MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes for space tech applications. 

Scaling Steadily: Incubated at IISc Bengaluru, the startup is targeting sectors such as defence, surveillance, agriculture, industrial automation, aerospace and robotics. Going forward, it plans to strengthen R&D, expand its product portfolio and develop a hardware-agnostic navigation platform. 

With the homegrown navigation systems market projected to become a $882 Mn opportunity by 2030, can Yaanendriya help autonomous machines operate reliably?

can Yaanendriya help autonomous machines operate reliably?

Infographic Of The Day

From finding a property to fractional ownership, there’s a whole startup ecosystem trying to quietly fix the actual problems in real estate. Here are the startups building behind the scenes…

Here are the startups building behind the scenes…

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