These UPI transactions will be blocked from Feb 1; NPCI shares details

Starting February 1, 2024, UPI payment apps will be prohibited from using special characters to create transaction IDs. Transactions made through UPI apps that incorporate special characters in the transaction ID will be rejected by the central system.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has issued a statement regarding the impact of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions on certain users. NPCI has announced plans to standardise the generation process of UPI transaction IDs. Therefore, they are requesting all players in the payment ecosystem to use only 'alphanumeric' characters and to avoid the use of special characters.

"Reference may be taken from our OC 193 dated March 28, 2024 wherein UPI ecosystem players were advised to used only alphanumeric characters for generating UPI transaction ID.  This is to ensure compliance with UPI technical specifications," as per an official NPCI release.

The circular issued on January 9 instructed UPI ecosystem participants to utilize only alphanumeric characters when creating UPI transaction IDs to adhere to UPI technical guidelines.

If the UPI application continues to generate transaction IDs containing special characters like @, #, !, or %, there is a risk that your payments may be declined. For example, a valid transaction ID will consist of alphanumeric characters only, such as 'upi1234567890abc12345'.

On the other hand, an invalid transaction ID may include special characters, like 'upi@123456!7890#abcd'. It is important to ensure that your app does not use special characters in transaction IDs as payments will not be processed successfully.

NPCI acknowledged that most of the concerns have been addressed, however, some participants are still not meeting the requirements. Due to the importance of complying with the specifications, it has been determined that special characters will no longer be permitted in UPI transaction IDs.

Mohan K, Founder of TechFini, said: "UPI transactions containing special characters in their transaction IDs will be declined by the central system. Only transaction IDs that follow an alphanumeric format will be processed successfully. This move aims to enhance system efficiency, prevent potential security vulnerabilities, and ensure uniformity across UPI transactions.”

Alok Singh, Executive VP - Digital Business at Ongo (the digital payments arm of AGS Transact), said: “Most of the major payment ecosystem players have complied with this NPCI direction about using 35 digits alphanumeric characters for UPI transaction IDs. However, there are some PSPs who are still non-complaint with this direction."

According to data released by the NPCI, transactions via the popular UPI platform reached a new high of 16.73 billion in December, marking an 8% increase from the previous month's 15.48 billion transactions. The total value of UPI transactions in December 2024 amounted to Rs 23.25 lakh crore, up from Rs 21.55 lakh crore in November. On average, there were 539.68 million daily transactions in December, compared to 516.07 million in November.