Nationwide UPI outage disrupts payments; NPCI says bank-level technical glitches

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) services faced a significant nationwide outage on Thursday evening, leaving users across the country struggling with digital transactions. The disruption began around 8:30 PM and was widely reported on Downdetector, a platform that tracks service outages based on user complaints.

According to Downdetector data, more than 100 UPI users reported their complaints. Of these, 61% of users faced issues in making payments, 30% were unable to transfer funds, and 9% reported being locked out of their UPI apps altogether.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the UPI network, addressed the disruption in a post on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). “Regret inconvenience on intermittent UPI connectivity issues, as a few of the banks were having some internal technical problems. NPCI systems have been working fine, and we have worked with these banks to ensure quick resolution,” it stated.

While the outage appeared to stem from technical glitches at the bank level rather than within NPCI's own infrastructure, the scale of the disruption highlighted growing user dependence on UPI for day-to-day financial transactions.

The incident came just days after NPCI reported record-high UPI transaction volumes for the month of July. The platform handled a staggering 19.47 billion transactions worth Rs 25.08 lakh crore during the month. This marked the highest-ever monthly transaction volume for UPI and the second-highest in terms of value, slightly trailing the Rs 25.14 lakh crore figure recorded in May 2025.

In contrast, June saw a minor dip with 18.39 billion transactions valued at ₹24.03 lakh crore. The surge in July reaffirms UPI's status as India's preferred digital payment mode, making any technical hiccups immediately impactful on a national scale.

Adding to the evolving landscape of digital payments, new UPI guidelines from NPCI came into effect on August 1, 2025. These changes are aimed at optimising user experience and improving network efficiency.

Among the key updates:

Balance Check Limit: UPI users are now limited to 50 balance inquiries per day across all apps.

Auto Balance Display: To ease the impact of this limit, UPI apps now show the updated bank balance after every successful transaction.

Time-Bound Bill Payments: Scheduled utility and bill payments will now only be processed before 10:00 AM or after 9:30 PM.

Transaction Status Checks: Users can check the status of a pending transaction only three times, with a minimum 90-second gap between attempts.

These changes are expected to streamline operations and reduce server load, particularly during peak usage hours.

As UPI continues to evolve as the backbone of India’s digital payments infrastructure, experts say service reliability must keep pace with rapid growth. Thursday’s outage serves as a reminder of the system’s scale and the need for continual upgrades and contingency planning, especially as more financial services integrate UPI functionality.