Several important changes have been implemented in the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) from today, which will impact users, merchants and banks altogether. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the regulatory body overseeing UPI, has introduced a fresh set of guidelines aimed at enhancing the digital payment system widely used across the country.
These new measures are designed to make UPI more user-friendly, reliable, and seamless, especially during peak transaction hours, by reducing disruptions and improving overall efficiency
UPI faces major outages
The changes follow the major outages faced by UPI - April 12 and March 26 - in a span of merely 2-3 months. Notably, the outages impacted crores of users as these hampered transactions worth crores of rupees.
According to a recent note of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), named Growing Retail Digital Payments: The Value of Interoperability, India’s UPI has emerged as a global leader in the real-time payment technology segment. UPI has surpassed Visa, which epitomises its dominance among other payment systems in the world.
The IMF adds that UPI powers almost 85 per cent of India’s digital payments, while it accounts for approximately 60 per cent of global payments.
Some of the notable changes that have kicked in from today:
- UPI users have been limited to checking their account balance a maximum of 50 times per day, down from the previously unlimited checks allowed
- The NPCI has also introduced fixed time slots for UPI autopay transactions. Payments, including subscriptions, EMIs, and utility bills will no longer be processed at random times throughout the day. These will only be executed during designated time windows
- These changes will not directly affect customers since their auto-payments will continue to be processed as usual
- Nonetheless, businesses are required to readjust their schedules of payment collection to avoid difficulties in making payments. The news changes are slated to enhance platform speed and also ease congestion.
