UPI users would experience better transaction services from June 16; know why

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has announced a significant update to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system, which will come into effect from June 16, 2025. This development will see a reduction in response times for UPI transactions, as part of an effort to enhance the user experience. The response time for checking transaction statuses and reversing payments will be reduced from the current 30 seconds to just 10 seconds. This change is expected to make the process of sending and receiving money through UPI noticeably faster and more efficient for all users. 

The circular issued by NPCI on April 26, 2025, outlined these updates. It detailed that not only transaction statuses and reversals but also the response time for sending or receiving money, known as request pay and response pay, will be halved from 30 seconds to 15 seconds. Furthermore, the time required to validate an address will be cut from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. These updates aim to ensure that all aspects of UPI transactions are completed more swiftly, thereby enhancing the overall efficiency of the digital payment system. 

The changes are driven by UPI's growing popularity as a digital payment system in India. To accommodate this growth and improve user satisfaction, NPCI has called on banks and payment service providers (PSPs) to update their systems to adhere to the new response times. It is important to note that these changes are not intended to compromise the transaction success rates. 

"The upcoming UPI upgrades mark a significant milestone for India’s digital payments landscape. By cutting transaction processing times by half or more, businesses could benefit from higher cart conversion rates, especially in e-commerce, where speed directly impacts sales. For physical stores, faster checkouts could reduce waiting times, enhancing customer satisfaction. Combined with UPI’s high success rate, these improvements could reduce payment failures by 3–5% during peak periods, ensuring smoother transactions for millions daily. To achieve this, three technological priorities are essential," said Vijay Khubchandani, Founder and CEO, Seven. 

He added: "First, advanced infrastructure capable of handling 300+ transactions per second without delays, using distributed systems to prevent bottlenecks. Second, real-time reconciliation tools that integrate seamlessly with business platforms to manage the high volume of instant payments, since delays here could disrupt financial operations. Last but not the least, robust security frameworks including AI-driven fraud detection and biometric authentication could be needed. This will help maintain trust while processing transactions at lightning-fast speeds."

As stated in the NPCI's circular, "Aforementioned revisions are intended to improve the customer experience. The members are required to ensure that they make the necessary changes in their system so that responses are handled within the revised time." Moreover, "Further, members are requested to ensure that the changes to the response time should not adversely impact the technical decline (TD) thresholds." 

This update follows incidents earlier in April when many UPI users experienced issues due to a technical problem. NPCI addressed these concerns on social media, acknowledging, "NPCI is currently facing intermittent technical issues, leading to partial UPI transaction declines. We are working to resolve the issue, and will keep you updated. We regret the inconvenience caused."