PhonePe Introduces Rs 100 Quarterly Fee for Inactive Wallets

Digital payments and financial services company PhonePe has introduced a 'wallet inactivity maintenance fee' of Rs 100 per quarter for inactive wallets.

The levy will be deducated from the existing wallet balance. "If wallet balance is less than the Wallet Maintenance Fee, then the entire wallet balance will be debited and wallet balance will become zero," it said, adding that the balance would never be negative.

What is the criteria for an 'inactive' wallet?

According to PhonePe, a wallet will be marked as 'inactive' if a user has not made any financial transactions through the PhonePe Wallet in the past 365 days.

Other user activities such as ogging in to the PhonePe application, performing UPI transactions, on-app category payments or applications (recharge, bill payments, credit cards, loans, insurance) or any other non-wallet transactions or KYC submission for wallet do not constitue wallet activity, and hence will not impact the wallet getting an 'inactive' status.

Why is PhonePe charging an inactive wallet fee?

Introducing a quarterly Rs 100 inactive wallet fee, PhonePe said the levy is charged to support continuous platform updates, fixes, and improvements to make the user experience better.

The digital payment platform notifies a user about a wallet becoming 'inactive' multiple times across 15 days before charging the fee, along with steps to re-activate the wallet.

If a financial transaction using the wallet is completed by the user during this period, PhonePe will change the wallet status to ‘Active’ and no fee will be levied to the user. In case no action is taken during the warning period, the fee will be deducted from the user's wallet balance at the end of the 15 days notice period.