PhonePe to charge Rs 100 quarterly fee on inactive wallets: What users need to know

Taking some inspiration from banks, PhonePe is going to levy a Rs 100 quarterly fee on dormant wallets. The app has already updated its usage guidelines to reflect the new policy.

In Short

• PhonePe will charge Rs 100 quarterly fee on inactive wallets
• The new policy has been added to the usage guidelines
• To avoid the fee, users will have to make at least one transaction every year

PhonePe users may soon have to pay a maintenance fee if they leave their wallets unused for a long time. The company recently updated its wallet guidelines, noting that it would impose a Rs 100 inactivity maintenance fee if users failed to use their PhonePe wallet for 365 days. In other words, PhonePay will consider a wallet inactive if there are no financial transactions from the wallet for a year.

The move has drawn criticism online after users noticed the updated terms. Abhishek Yadav, who goes by the username @yabhishekhd on X, pointed out that many users do not actively use PhonePe Wallet and instead make payments directly through UPI from their bank accounts. Some users called it “charging users for a feature they never use.”

How the inactivity fee works and how users can avoid it

The Rs 100 fee will only apply to users who have not made any wallet transactions for a year. Simply opening the PhonePe app or making UPI payments will not count as wallet activity. Users will need to complete a wallet transaction to reactivate their account and avoid the charge.

PhonePe will give users a 15-day notice period before deducting the fee. If the wallet has enough balance, the company can deduct the charge directly. If the balance is lower than Rs 100, PhonePe will take the available amount and the wallet balance will become zero instead of going into negative.

PhonePe is not the first company to introduce such charges

Inactivity fees are not new in the digital payments industry. Other fintech platforms have previously introduced similar charges for wallets that remain unused for long periods. For example, MobiKwik introduced something similar in 2021.

Earlier, Airtel Payments Bank also had a similar wallet maintenance fee policy, where users with inactive wallets could be charged after a certain period without transactions. Under its earlier terms, Airtel could charge a wallet maintenance fee of Rs 20 if a wallet remained unused for three months, with the amount deducted from the existing wallet balance.

The company later introduced an Annual Maintenance Charge (AMC) system, replacing the earlier wallet maintenance charges. Under this structure, active wallets are charged Rs 75 per year (excluding GST), collected in quarterly installments.

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