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ToggleThe National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has announced a set of new guidelines aimed at enhancing the efficiency of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). According to the latest circular, banks and payment service providers (PSPs) are instructed to regulate the use of the 10 most utilized UPI Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) by the deadline of July 31, 2025. Starting from August 1, 2025, UPI applications will impose limits on the daily usage of various APIs, which include balance inquiries, transaction status checks, and autopay mandate fulfilments. It has been reported that the high volume of usage has been placing enormous pressure on the UPI network, resulting in service outages.
This article will outline all the essential details related to the new UPI regulations introduced by the NPCI.
As per the directives from NPCI, effective August 1, balance inquiry requests will be limited to a maximum of 50 requests per application, per user each day. To alleviate congestion during peak traffic hours—specifically from 10 AM to 1 PM and 5 PM to 9:30 PM—UPI applications have been instructed to queue, rate-limit, and restrict any non-customer payment requests. In addition to these measures, banks are obliged to send users an account balance notification following each transaction. This practice is intended to reduce the necessity for manual balance checks.
Moreover, autopay mandates will also be subjected to processing limitations, which will only be carried out during non-peak hours at moderated transaction-per-second (TPS) rates. Each autopay mandate can be attempted only once, with a maximum of three retry attempts.
Another key point from the NPCI’s regulations is that the list account request—functioning as a tool to display all accounts linked to a user’s mobile number—will be restricted to just 25 initiations per application within a 24-hour timeframe. This action can only occur after the user has selected their issuing bank within the UPI application.
In a crucial move, NPCI has also mandated that PSPs must provide a formal declaration of compliance with these new regulations by August 31, 2025. Non-compliance can lead to severe repercussions, such as restrictions on API usage, financial penalties, and even suspension of the onboarding process for new customers.
These new guidelines represent a concerted effort by the NPCI to better manage the UPI ecosystem, ensuring a smoother experience for all users while simultaneously safeguarding the integrity of the network. The anticipated results are expected to contribute to the stability and reliability of UPI transactions across the country.
In summary, the NPCI’s new guidelines aim to enhance the functionality and reliability of UPI by imposing restrictions throughout peak hours and managing the frequency of various requests. By enforcing such measures, the NPCI hopes to mitigate the risks of service disruptions that have plagued the system due to excessive traffic.