He said almost 65% of card payments at Future Group outlets are through debit card.“It will have a significant rise in costs. RBI revised the merchant discount rate (MDR) for debit card transactions with effect from January 1 next year. At the bigger stores, MDR will be 0.9% of the purchase value or Rs 1,000, whichever is lower. As there is no such cost for handling cash, kirana stores will tend to move to cash. He would rather install automated teller machines (ATMs) at stores so customers can withdraw cash and pay their bills.“At the end of the day, it is a debit card and why should authorising a debit cost so much money?” Biyani said.

Source: Economic Times December 07, 2017 18:44 UTC