The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) issued new Unified Payments Interface (UPI) guidelines in May 2025, which came into effect on August 1, 2025. The guidelines were issued with an aim to enhance the efficiency and reliability of UPI transactions.
- The new guidelines will be applicable to all participants in the UPI ecosystem, including banks, payment apps, and third-party service providers.
- The NPCI directed Payment Service Providers (PSPs) such as Googlepay (Gpay), PhonePe, and Paytm, to implement the relevant changes in their system by July 31, 2025.
Exam Hints:
- What? New UPI Rules are effective from August 1, 2025
- Who issued? National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)
- Deadline for PSPs: July 31, 2025
- Balance Enquiry : Up to 50 times per day
- List Account: Up to 25 times a day
- Pending Transaction: Up to 3 times a day
- Autopay Processing Hours: Before 10:00 AM; Between 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM; After 9:30 PM
Revised UPI Guidelines:
Balance Enquiry Limit: UPI users can check their bank account balance only up to 50 times per UPI application per day through manual requests. The background or automated balance queries by applications are no longer permitted.
- After a successful UPI transaction, the updated account balance will be displayed automatically, reducing the need for manual enquiry.
- If the limit is exceeded, users will be restricted from checking their balance on that app for 24 hours.
List Account: UPI applications can check and list the linked bank accounts of the user for up to 25 times a day per application per user, to protect user privacy and control the use of backend resources.
- The List Account Application Programming Interface (API) helps users view the list of bank accounts linked to their mobile number through a specific bank in the UPI application.
- On the failure of the list account to load, retry is allowed, following the consent of the user, to avoid unnecessary system load.
Transaction status: Users can check the status of a pending transaction up to 3 times a day at a time interval of 90 seconds between each transaction inquiry.
- With the initial transaction, four attempts are allowed to execute a single transaction.
Autopay: The guidelines have mandated to schedule all autopay executions during non-peak hours only to reduce congestion. The non-peak hours include the time period before 10:00 AM, between 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM, and after 9:30 PM.
- If a scheduled AutoPay fails due to insufficient balance or technical issues, the application will retry up to 3 times, making it 4 total attempts.
- Peak hours are defined as the period during the day when UPI financial transactions reach the highest transactions per second.
Recipient Information Visibility: To prevent accidental transfers and reduce fraud, UPI apps will now display the recipient’s registered name and transaction details before the payment is completed.
Penalties: The non-compliance of rules by an UPI application or PSP will lead to the restriction of their access to UPI APIs, pause onboarding new users and imposing technical or regulatory penalties.
About National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI):
Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) – Dilip Asbe
Headquarters – Mumbai, Maharashtra
Established – 2008
