UPI Payments Restored After Nationwide Disruption Affects Millions

Digital payments via the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) were restored on Saturday for a majority of users, after a widespread technical outage earlier in the day disrupted millions of transactions across India.

The outage affected everything from routine bill payments to small business transactions, causing significant inconvenience to users.

Reports from Delhi-NCR and other major cities indicated that UPI services resumed functionality by late Saturday, even though the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) – which operates the UPI framework- had yet to officially confirm full restoration.

Glitch Hits Major Platforms

The disruption began in the morning hours and affected key digital payment apps and bank platforms, including those from SBI, ICICI, and HDFC.

According to outage tracker Down Detector, there were over 2,300 user complaints by 1 pm. Most reported issues were related to failed payments (81 per cent) and fund transfers (17 per cent).

“UPI is down again. Good that I always carry cash. Cash is always King,” wrote one frustrated user on X.

Another user commented, “This is becoming way too frequent nowadays. First UPI goes down, then banks declare their own ‘downtime’ for UPI transactions.”

NPCI Responds

In a post on X, the NPCI acknowledged the issue, stating: “NPCI is currently facing intermittent technical issues, leading to partial UPI transaction declines.”

The corporation assured users that their team was actively working to resolve the issue and expressed regret for the inconvenience caused.

Despite the brief disruption, experts say the incident highlights the increasing dependency on digital payment systems and the importance of resilient financial infrastructure.

The outage came amid a period of rapid growth for UPI in India.

In March alone, the platform recorded a record-breaking 18.3 billion transactions – a 13.59 per cent increase from February’s 16.11 billion.

The total transaction value also hit a new high of ₹24.77 lakh crore, marking a 12.79 per cent jump from February and a massive 25 per cent surge year-on-year.

Daily, the UPI network processed over 590 million transactions, amounting to nearly ₹80,000 crore in value.

While services have largely resumed, the incident serves as a reminder of the challenges in maintaining seamless digital services at scale.

NPCI will release a full technical update in the coming days, addressing stakeholder demands to strengthen system robustness in India’s digital payments ecosystem

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