New Delhi: The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has announced a series of changes to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) framework, set to take effect from August 1, 2025. The reforms focus on optimizing the performance and stability of UPI services by regulating API usage across banks and digital payment platforms, especially during periods of high transaction volumes.
The new guidelines aim to enhance the reliability and responsiveness of the UPI network by curbing excessive or repetitive backend requests that often lead to service slowdowns. While day-to-day transactions—such as payments at local shops—will remain unaffected, several backend operations will now come under strict usage caps.
Key Changes in the UPI Ecosystem:
- Daily Cap on Balance Inquiries:
Users will now be limited to 50 account balance checks per UPI app per day, a move designed to reduce excessive API calls that strain servers. - Limit on Linked Bank Account Info Requests:
Access to view bank accounts linked with a mobile number will be restricted to 25 times daily, ensuring better resource management. - Scheduled Auto-Debit Windows:
Recurring payments such as OTT subscriptions or mutual fund SIPs will be processed only during off-peak hours—before 10 AM, between 1 PM to 5 PM, and after 9:30 PM—to balance server load. - Cap on Transaction Status Refresh Attempts:
Users can now refresh the status of a pending transaction only three times, with a mandatory 90-second interval between each attempt.
These measures come in response to a rising number of UPI service disruptions observed in April and May 2025, which impacted millions of users. According to the NPCI, a substantial portion of the issues stemmed from repeated API requests—such as constant balance checks or multiple refreshes of a pending transaction—which created unnecessary stress on the system.
With UPI handling nearly 16 billion transactions per month, the NPCI stated that these reforms are crucial for ensuring system integrity, faster processing times, and uninterrupted user experience across the growing digital payments ecosystem.
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