Changes In UPI System In India From August 1st: Know The Details

From  August 1, 2025, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system in India will see  significant changes. These are  aimed at reducing system overload and preventing outages. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), in a recent circular,  has directed banks and payment service providers (PSPs) to limit the use of 10 key Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) on the UPI network. Giving a timeline, the NPCI has said that this should be done  by July 31, 2025. 

The 10 APIs are some  essential functions available in the UPI system. These include balance inquiries, transaction status checks, and autopay mandate executions. The NPCI aims is to reduce the load on the UPI system and prevent outages for a more stable and efficient digital payment experience for users.

"Banks and Payment Service Providers must make sure they watch and control all API requests (in terms of speed and transactions per second limits) sent to UPI for proper usage (both customer-started and system-started requests)," the circular dated May 21, 2025, states.

The NPCI circular also warns that non-compliance with the new guidelines may invite consequences , which may include API restrictions, penalties, suspension of new customer onboarding, or other measures deemed. 

NPCI’s Restrictions:

For Balance Enquiries: Limited to 50 checks per app, per user, per day. This suggests that if one is using multiple UPI apps like Paytm and PhonePe, then he/she will have 50 balance checks on each app.

Linked Account Queries: Restricted to 25 queries per app, per day, with explicit user consent required.
In case of Autopay mandates, it will only be executed during non-peak hours, which are outside 10 AM-1 PM and 5 PM-9:30 PM. Each mandate will be 1 attempt with up to 3 retries.

Transaction Status Checks: Banks and apps will have to wait at least 90 seconds before it checks transaction status after authentication. Only 3 status checks will be allowed within a 2-hour window per transaction.
Non-user-initiated API calls will be restricted during peak hours during the slots 10 AM-1 PM and 5 PM-9:30 PM in order to avoid system loads.

Banks and payment service providers must submit undertakings by August 31, 2025, where they will confirm that they are queuing and throttling API calls properly.

Acquiring banks will have to undergo annual system audits by CERT-In empanelled auditors, which will start from  August 31, 2025.