RBI should ensure fair MDR share ePayment companies While the Reserve Bank of India’s latest guidelines on merchant discount rates (MDR) have brought some respite to the digital payments industry, many payment executives ET spoke to feel that the central bank needs to ensure equitable distribution of MDR between the various participants of digital transactions. MDR is the amount paid by a merchant for a digital transaction and it is shared by multiple parties - the bank which issues the card, the acquiring bank which onboards the merchant, the network companies who process the transactions and the players who deploy the payment solution. As of now, the share of MDR is higher for the issuing entity while the acquiring company gets a much smaller share. Further, with the new rates from the regulator, payment companies fear their margins could be under further stress. While the maximum cap on MDR has been decided by theRBI, what needs to be done is that the ratio of split betwee