India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) experienced a significant service disruption on Saturday, leaving thousands of users unable to complete payments or transfer funds. The outage sparked widespread inconvenience, especially at retail counters where users found themselves stranded due to failed transactions.
According to outage-tracking platform Downdetector, complaints surged past 2,000 by noon, with the majority of users reporting issues related to payment processing and fund transfers. The disruption impacted popular platforms such as Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm, and several banking apps, including the State Bank of India’s digital services.
This latest outage adds to a series of technical setbacks faced by UPI in recent weeks. On March 26, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the UPI network, attributed a similar nationwide issue to an “intermittent technical problem.” Although services were later restored, another wave of complaints followed on April 2, with Downdetector recording hundreds of reports—nearly half related to fund transfers and the rest to payment failures.
Despite these setbacks, UPI continues to dominate India’s digital payments landscape. As per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), UPI accounted for a staggering 83% of total payment volumes by the end of 2024, a sharp rise from 34% in 2019. Meanwhile, the share of other payment methods—including RTGS, NEFT, IMPS, and card-based transactions—declined significantly during the same period.
A recent report by the Economic Times (ET) highlighted that while UPI continues to break monthly transaction records, the rapid pace of growth has begun to taper as its user base matures and expands.
The recurring technical glitches have sparked frustration among users and raised concerns over the resilience of India’s digital payment infrastructure. The NPCI has yet to issue an official statement regarding the root cause of the most recent outage. As the reliance on digital transactions deepens, experts stress the importance of ensuring greater stability and scalability in payment networks like UPI to maintain user trust and support the country’s cashless economy drive.
