Last Updated:
In a circular dated April 26, NPCI directs banks and payment apps to implement quicker processing standards across various UPI services starting June 16, 2025.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has cut UPI response time. (Representative Image)
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has tightened the response timelines for Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions to enhance user experience and reduce delays. In a circular dated April 26, NPCI directed banks and payment apps to implement quicker processing standards across various UPI services starting June 16, 2025.
| UPI API | Existing Response Time | Revised Response Time |
|---|---|---|
| Request Pay / Response Pay | 30 seconds | 15 seconds |
| Check Transaction Status | 30 seconds | 10 seconds |
| Transaction Reversal | 30 seconds | 10 seconds |
| Validate Address | 15 seconds | 10 seconds |
The move aims to cut delays in payment processing, transaction verification, and reversals. NPCI has advised all participating entities to ensure that these faster timelines do not lead to an increase in technical declines or service disruptions.
The changes follow a recent UPI outage on April 12, where NPCI acknowledged partial transaction failures due to technical issues and assured swift resolution.
Daily Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions in the country closed in on the 600-million mark in April. The instant payments system recorded 596 million transactions during the month, up from 590 million in March, data released by the government on May 1 shows.
Recently, UPI faced a number of outages in the months of March and April causing serious disruptions in apps like GPay and PhonePe, which called for attention to the growing concern over the reliability of the platform.
Three major outages were reported in just three weeks on March 26, April 1 and April 12 have exposed certain vulnerabilities in the system that processes around Rs 25 lakh crore in monthly digital transactions.
An investigation done by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which manages the UPI, reveals that the outages stemmed from technical oversight — the absence of transaction status check limiter in the system’s architecture.
The issue was identified to be caused by the flooding of ‘Check transaction API. Further, it was observed that a few PSP Banks were also sending requests for ‘Check transactions’ ever for older transactions multiple times, stated NPCI.
- First Published: