MUMBAI: India experienced the flip side of going cashless when Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the platform that accounts for more than four-fifths of all digital transactions in the country, suffered a major outage Saturday, leaving users struggling to make payments across malls, parking lots and shops.
Users across India reported failed payments. Some got debit alerts despite failed transactions. National Payments Corporation of India, which operates UPI, reported "intermittent technical issues leading to partial transaction declines" which "stabilised by late afternoon". TNN
NPCI said they regretted the outage and were "working to resolve the issue". The impact was pan-India, with complaints from people in Bengal, Delhi, Maharashtra, UP, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Assam and the southern states. A woman in the national capital said the outage inconvenienced people at a specialty hospital as it led to a long queue at the payments desk. In Lucknow, Ahad Arshad, operator of the popular food chain Red Dragon, said around 50 customers were unable to pay their bills. "We had to note down their contact numbers for payment later. It was chaotic for about 25 minutes but eventually all dues were cleared," he said.
Payment providers said they started facing increased failures just before 10am. There was no shutdown of services but a sharp rise in failed transactions. Success rates improved later in the afternoon. NPCI did not give any details of the cause of the failures nor about the increase in failure rate.
Sources said that it was not a capacity issue as NPCI was used to higher volumes. The corporation was doing a "root cause analysis" and did not disclose the reasons behind the disruption.
An Ahmedabad-based petrol pump owner, requesting anonymity, said they switched to precautionary payment methods during the disruption. "We took UPI payments before filling fuel or requested customers to use other options." In UP, from restaurants to retailers, users across the state reported that popular third-party payment platforms like Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm were unresponsive between 11.20am and 11.45am.
The disruption was the fourth in 30 days - an unusual frequency for a platform that has a highly reliable track record. Since its launch in 2016, UPI has scaled rapidly without major hiccups. Its ease of use - allowing peer-to-peer transfers at no cost - has made it ubiquitous, from roadside vendors to high-value transactions of up to Rs 1 lakh. Many consumers, now accustomed to its dependability, no longer carry cash.
For small merchants, the outage meant missed sales. Larger retailerssaw customers switch to more expensive card-based payments, raising transaction costs.
The impact ranged from a few rupees in rickshaw fares to larger purchases at petrol stations and shops. Earlier, disruptions on March 26 were also attributed to a technical issue. Banks said the outages on March 31 and April 2 were largely due to heavy traffic at the close of the financial year.
The last time UPI faced a systemic vulnerability was in 2020 when Yes Bank, then a key service provider for apps such as PhonePe, was placed under a moratorium by RBI. The fallout led NPCI to propose market-share caps to mitigate single-point-of-failure risks. Despite these efforts, Google Pay and PhonePe continue to dominate the UPI ecosystem. Though transactions feel instantaneous to users, the process involves nearly 10 rapid-fire digital handshakes among third-party apps, their banks, customers and recipient banks, and recipient payment processors and their banks.
(With inputs from our state bureau)
Users across India reported failed payments. Some got debit alerts despite failed transactions. National Payments Corporation of India, which operates UPI, reported "intermittent technical issues leading to partial transaction declines" which "stabilised by late afternoon". TNN
NPCI said they regretted the outage and were "working to resolve the issue". The impact was pan-India, with complaints from people in Bengal, Delhi, Maharashtra, UP, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Assam and the southern states. A woman in the national capital said the outage inconvenienced people at a specialty hospital as it led to a long queue at the payments desk. In Lucknow, Ahad Arshad, operator of the popular food chain Red Dragon, said around 50 customers were unable to pay their bills. "We had to note down their contact numbers for payment later. It was chaotic for about 25 minutes but eventually all dues were cleared," he said.
Payment providers said they started facing increased failures just before 10am. There was no shutdown of services but a sharp rise in failed transactions. Success rates improved later in the afternoon. NPCI did not give any details of the cause of the failures nor about the increase in failure rate.
Sources said that it was not a capacity issue as NPCI was used to higher volumes. The corporation was doing a "root cause analysis" and did not disclose the reasons behind the disruption.
An Ahmedabad-based petrol pump owner, requesting anonymity, said they switched to precautionary payment methods during the disruption. "We took UPI payments before filling fuel or requested customers to use other options." In UP, from restaurants to retailers, users across the state reported that popular third-party payment platforms like Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm were unresponsive between 11.20am and 11.45am.
The disruption was the fourth in 30 days - an unusual frequency for a platform that has a highly reliable track record. Since its launch in 2016, UPI has scaled rapidly without major hiccups. Its ease of use - allowing peer-to-peer transfers at no cost - has made it ubiquitous, from roadside vendors to high-value transactions of up to Rs 1 lakh. Many consumers, now accustomed to its dependability, no longer carry cash.
For small merchants, the outage meant missed sales. Larger retailerssaw customers switch to more expensive card-based payments, raising transaction costs.
The impact ranged from a few rupees in rickshaw fares to larger purchases at petrol stations and shops. Earlier, disruptions on March 26 were also attributed to a technical issue. Banks said the outages on March 31 and April 2 were largely due to heavy traffic at the close of the financial year.
The last time UPI faced a systemic vulnerability was in 2020 when Yes Bank, then a key service provider for apps such as PhonePe, was placed under a moratorium by RBI. The fallout led NPCI to propose market-share caps to mitigate single-point-of-failure risks. Despite these efforts, Google Pay and PhonePe continue to dominate the UPI ecosystem. Though transactions feel instantaneous to users, the process involves nearly 10 rapid-fire digital handshakes among third-party apps, their banks, customers and recipient banks, and recipient payment processors and their banks.
(With inputs from our state bureau)
You may also like
"You are imposing your ideology on the country": Owaisi urges PM Modi to reconsider Waqf Act
Poliovirus detected in sewage samples from Pakistan's 20 districts
Citarella fish guts slip wins New York salsa dancer $6m compensation
Opinion: M. S. Dhoni, a legend of his time, has overstayed his welcome
Fact check: Mumbai to Dubai in 2 hours via underwater train?
