Major UPI Overhaul Begins Today: New Limits, Fixed Timings Rolled Out After Repeated Outages

Mumbai: Starting today, significant changes have been rolled out across India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform in a bid to strengthen the reliability and efficiency of digital transactions. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which governs UPI, has enforced a new set of operational rules that will affect everyday users, businesses, and banks alike.

This move comes in response to two major outages on March 26 and April 12, which caused large-scale transaction failures and affected crores of users nationwide. In light of these incidents, the NPCI is now prioritizing system stability and traffic control, especially during peak hours.

One of the most notable changes is the limit placed on balance inquiries. Users will now be restricted to a maximum of 50 account balance checks per day, compared to the previously unlimited access. NPCI believes this will reduce unnecessary server load and improve system responsiveness during high-demand periods.

Another major change is the introduction of fixed processing windows for UPI AutoPay transactions. Payments such as EMIs, utility bills, and subscriptions will no longer be processed at random times. Instead, they will be executed only during designated time slots set by NPCI. While end-users will continue to receive their auto-debits as scheduled, businesses and service providers must now adjust their systems to avoid failures or delays in payment collection.

These reforms are expected to enhance overall platform speed, reduce technical congestion, and increase reliability, especially during evenings and weekends when transaction volumes peak.

India’s leadership in digital payments has been acknowledged globally. A recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) titled “Growing Retail Digital Payments: The Value of Interoperability” highlights that UPI now powers nearly 85 percent of India’s digital payments and accounts for 60 percent of global real-time transactions. The report also notes that UPI has outpaced major global payment networks like Visa in terms of transaction volume.