Current affairs, 18 August 2026: a law to rework the zero-MDR rule on UPI and RuPay, and the Mines and Minerals Amendment Act

Two laws cleared their final step this week, and one of them sits squarely inside the banking-awareness syllabus. This digest takes the Payment and Settlement Systems (Amendment) Act first, because the MDR on UPI and RuPay is a question that has appeared in banking papers for years, and then the Mines and Minerals Amendment Act for the polity and economy sections.

The payments law: what changes for UPI and RuPay

President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent to an Act that amends the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 — the parent law under which the Reserve Bank of India regulates payment systems in India. Parliament passed the Bill on 10 August 2026, and the assent was notified in the gazette by the Ministry of Law. The New Indian Express

The change gives the government legal backing to modify the zero-MDR framework on UPI and RuPay card transactions. In plain terms, the government may now decide by notification which electronic payment modes or transactions stay free of MDR and which do not. The New Indian Express

The concept being tested: what is MDR?

MDR — the Merchant Discount Rate — is the fee a merchant pays to its bank (and, through it, to the card network and the customer’s bank) for processing a digital payment. It is usually a small percentage of the transaction.

• On UPI and RuPay debit cards, MDR has been effectively zero since January 2020, which is why a shopkeeper accepting a UPI payment pays nothing on it. That is the “zero-MDR” regime the new law lets the government revisit.
• Who is who: UPI is built and run by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI); RuPay is NPCI’s domestic card network; and the whole payments space is regulated by the RBI under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.

You do not need the politics of the debate. You need the definitions — MDR, UPI, RuPay, NPCI, RBI — and the one fact that the amendment is about who can change the zero-MDR rule and how.

The Mines and Minerals (MMDR) Amendment Act, 2026

Separately, President Murmu granted assent to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2026. Its two headline provisions:

• It lets the Centre take control of mineral-bearing lands in the states, and
• It bars state governments from imposing any levy, tax or cess on minerals.

The government says the aim is uniformity in the mining sector, to attract private investment, and to align the mining of critical and strategic minerals with national goals such as Atmanirbhar Bharat and Viksit Bharat 2047. Several mineral-rich states had objected, and the Congress-led opposition said it would challenge the law in the Supreme Court. The Tribune

What to write in your notebook

Three lines:

1. The Payment and Settlement Systems (Amendment) Act, 2026 lets the government rework the zero-MDR framework on UPI and RuPay by notification; the parent Act is regulated by the RBI.
2. MDR is the fee a merchant pays to accept a digital payment; it has been zero on UPI and RuPay debit cards since 2020. UPI and RuPay are run by NPCI.
3. The MMDR Amendment Act, 2026 lets the Centre control mineral-bearing lands and bars states from taxing minerals, aimed at critical-mineral security.