I think MDR on UPI was probably inevitable at some point, especially given how widespread UPI adoption has become. It could also lead to more competition, instead of just three apps accounting for more than 95% of the market.
That being said, there are some use cases, like investing and broking, where the proposed MDR structure doesn’t really make sense.
The problem with broking is that there is no guarantee that money transferred to a broker will actually result in a transaction.
As brokers, we can’t force a customer to trade after transferring money. And if we can’t pass the UPI charge on to the customer, there is essentially no limit to the cost a customer can impose on a broker without generating any revenue.
Just as an example, 10,000 customers could each make 50 UPI transfers of ₹2 lakh in a month without executing a single trade. At the proposed MDR, this could potentially cost the broker around ₹2 crore, without generating any business.
What makes this even more challenging is quarterly settlement (QS). This is a SEBI regulation that requires brokers to send unused funds back to clients every month or quarter.
Most customers then transfer these funds back to their broking accounts, with more than half of these transfers happening through UPI. So regulation essentially forces this movement of money every month or quarter, and the broker could end up bearing the cost when the money comes back, without any incremental benefit or revenue.
By the way, we currently don’t charge brokerage on equity delivery trades because the economics allow us to offer them for free. But if every UPI transfer starts carrying an additional cost, irrespective of whether the customer actually trades, I don’t see how we can absorb this indefinitely.
I think having an MDR is okay. It still doesn’t solve the problem of customers transferring money without transacting, but something like 0.02% with a cap of ₹5 or ₹10 per transaction seems much more reasonable for broking, instead of a cap as high as ₹300.
Bangalore produces around 7,000 tonnes of waste a day, roughly 3,000 tonnes of that is wet waste. All of it has to be collected, segregated, and processed every single day. A lot of it still ends up badly treated or in a landfill.
We got to know the @HasiruDalaInnov team a few years ago. They've spent years doing the thankless part of this, collecting and segregating waste at scale. But wet waste has remained a problem. Dry waste has buyers. Wet waste goes bad too quickly to store, and composting it usually loses money.
@carbonmastersuk takes that wet waste and turns it into biogas you can cook with. More importantly, they've made a business out of it.
Put the two together, and it's fairly obvious. Hasiru Dala has the waste and knows how to sort it. Carbon Masters knows how to generate economic value out of it by generating biogas and organic manure.
This problem goes beyond Bengaluru's garbage. India imports about 60% of our LPG and half our natural gas. Turning our own waste into fuel is about as self-reliant as it gets.
We need more people working on hard problems like this. That’s also why we’ve backed both Hasiru Dala Innovations and Carbon Masters through @Rainmatterin.
We spent some time at their Harohalli plant to understand how it all fits together for our latest Rainmatter Original. If you've ever wondered where the waste from our homes actually goes, this is worth a watch (full episode link in comments).🙂
#StartupsWithMC | Whatfix cofounder and CEO Khadim Batti passes away
Khadim Batti, co-founder and CEO of enterprise software startup Whatfix, has passed away. He was a prominent figure in India’s SaaS and startup ecosystem.
Read More:
https://t.co/J2mTPE6xNU
My journey with @gauravmunjal started long before Unacademy. At CommonFloor, I acquired his company, Flatchat. One day, Gaurav came to me with the idea of Unacademy. I wanted him to stay and continue building with us, but the idea of democratizing education was so powerful, and its potential impact so meaningful, that I couldn’t say no. Instead, I wrote the first angel cheque.
Years later, I joined the journey myself: first by building Graphy, and eventually by leading the entire Test Prep business.
One of my fondest memories is travelling in an Unacademy T-shirt. At airports, CISF personnel would recognise Unacademy just from the Glyph on my T-shirt. They would come up to me and say that they had studied on Unacademy and that it had helped them crack their exams.
Somehow, those conversations made long flights feel shorter and warmer. That was the power of the brand we had built and the impact it had created.
We built products that were loved by users and competitors alike. We probably helped our competitors hire fewer product managers because of us. :)
Over the years, we did four ESOP buybacks, including our most recent ₹50 crore buyback just a few months ago. We always tried to do right by our people. Even during layoffs, some of the hardest decisions we ever had to make, we went above and beyond when it came to severance and other benefits.
Unacademy’s Free Platform created a generation of celebrity educators, while our YouTube videos have been watched over 10 billion times. Our Live Courses Subscription model went on to become the industry norm. Graphy today empowers creators across the world and does over ₹400 crore in Annual GMV, while PrepLadder has become the go-to platform for medical students.
A heartfelt thank you to all our current team members who stood by us and didn’t abandon the ship through the toughest times; to everyone who has been part of our journey over the years; to our incredible educators; to my co-founders; and to our investors who believed in us and backed us along the way.
When I look back at where it all started, the simple idea of democratizing education, and the millions of lives we touched along the way, I think we can say one thing with a smile:
We did crack it. 🙂
My feed is filled with people vibe coding all sorts of financial tools using Kite APIs like portfolio dashboards, backtesting setups, market insight tools, and even automated trading setups. A lot of these things are useless but there are some genuinely well thought out tools, built to solve very specific problems that traders and investors have.
And most of these people have never written a line of code in their life. Just plain English and AI coding tools like Claude Code, Codex, etc.
If you have FOMO to try these tools but don't know where to start, try our MCP plugin first. Connect it to your Zerodha account and just start asking it things. You get a real sense of what's possible before you start using AI coding tools.
Link in the comments.
This is the best time to establish a High-Level Committee on Banking. Following the twin balance sheet problem, Indian banks have performed remarkably well over the last ten years. By every indicator - NIM, provisioning, profitability, professional management, coverage, credit growth, etc., the Indian banks have stood out, especially the Public Sector Banks (PSBs).
There cannot be a better time to ask: What next for Indian banks? This is particularly important as India aspires to become a developed nation by 2027. Are our banks in a position to fund this transformation? Are they capable of keeping the economy on an even keel?
From a position of strength, we are constituting a Committee to examine these issues and advise us on what needs to be done for our banking sector by 2047. I want the outcome to be ambitious.
- Smt @nsitharaman at the Business Standard Manthan, 2026
DRHPs or Novels?
[1] LIC 652 pages.
[2] PineLabs 648 pages.
[3] Groww 555 pages
[4] Tata Capital 836 pages.🤯
You'll just put it into the LLMs, read the summary, and miss out the nuances.
ChatGPT will conveniently make it inconvenient for you to be a good investor.
Beware!
Early machines automated repetitive tasks, dramatically reducing costs and increase productivity but lacked nuance.
Software advanced automation by encoding nuances, handling more complex tasks.
AI now captures and invents nuances rapidly, extending automation into previously unimaginable areas and could solve really hard problems.
The left wing thinks I'm right wing.
The right wing thinks I'm left wing.
The truth : I am a being in temporary human clothing standing on a fire ball flying around another fire ball in space.
I am here for a brief moment in time and I wish to gain Moksha in this life.
ੴ
The Federer speech at Dartmouth is such a heartwarming 25 minute watch. A master class in speaking ironically from someone who doesn’t give speeches - simple, thoughtful and vulnerable. And the tennis lessons apply so deeply to both careers and investing.
Three things that stood out for me…
1. Everybody can play well in the first two hours, when you are fast, fit and clear. It is when your body is tired, mind wandering and discipline fading that a champion finds a grip on themselves. Resilience is lasting for the long term.
2. Talent is not gift, but grit. It has a broad definition. Trusting yourself is talent. Patience is talent. Discipline is talent. Process is talent. Managing yourself is talent. In the investing world too, all these are talents, more than picking funds and stocks.
3. A legend won 80% of his matches but only 54% of his points. You don’t need to win more than that in life and investing. Champions don’t win every point; they realise they will lose points and learn how to deal with failure and learn from mistakes.
And finally… life is beyond the court, the office and certainly money. It is about being happy, using power, influence and wealth to spread joy, those memories with family and friends… and just being good. Never let happiness be decided by an NAV.
Sometimes I get these cute DMs
"ankur, your pics are looking awesome. Which phone do you use?"
"ankur, your videos are so sharp. Which camera do you use?"
"Your voice sounds so clear and deep. Which mic do you use?"
"You have been meditating for so long without fail, which app do you use?"
Makes me smile :))
It's the equivalent of me asking someone, "Your book was wonderful. Which pen did you use?"
A lot of us are stuck in the wait for the right tools.
The right camera, the right phone, the right laptop, the right course, the right book, the right app.
The right moment.
What we fail to recognize is that the tool is just that.
A tool.
A tool doesn't replace the hard work.
It elevates the hard work.
A tool doesn't improve the art.
It refines the artistry.
A tool doesn't replace the skill.
It enhances it's application.
If you keep waiting for the right tool, you will never give your talent the chance to shine on its own merit.
Share your art today.
The tool will come.