The UPI system, which is used by apps like Google Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm, will undergo significant changes starting on August 1.
New guidelines for using the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) Application Programming Interface (API) are being introduced.
Major UPI Rule Changes Coming August 1: New NPCI API Guidelines for Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm Users
By enabling instantaneous money transfers via mobile devices, UPI (Unified Payments Interface) has lessened reliance on cash and credit cards.
Currently, the system processes about 16 billion transactions each month.
Rapid growth in the UPI user base is posing technical difficulties for the system.
There have been several UPI outages in the last three to four months.
Users attempting to complete transactions experienced widespread disruption and panic on April 12 when UPI services were unavailable for five hours.
Repetitive API requests and growing system load are two major causes of UPI failures.
The use of wallets, cash, and cards has drastically decreased since the introduction of UPI.
The use of UPI for regular payments is growing in popularity.
Millions of users are impacted by even a brief interruption in UPI services.
UPI Now Processes 7,000 Transactions Every Second, Highlighting Massive Growth
At the moment, UPI handles roughly 7,000 transactions per second.
Approximately 4 lakh (400,000) users are affected if the system is unavailable for even one minute.
UPI is currently used by more than 40 crore (400 million) people to make payments.
On August 1, NPCI will put new rules into effect to address technical issues.
All banks and Payment Service Providers (PSPs), such as PhonePe, Paytm, and Google Pay, have been instructed by NPCI to manage the top ten most-used APIs by July 31.
There will be a new daily cap: users will only be able to check their account balance 50 times per day using a UPI app.
There will be modifications to the way auto-payments are managed.
It will only be possible for users to see how many accounts are connected to their mobile number 25 times every day.
Autopay transactions (like SIPs or Netflix subscriptions) will only be handled after 9:30 PM, before 10 AM, and between 1 PM and 5 PM.
