Faster UPI Transactions Coming Soon: NPCI Cuts API Response Times from June 16, 2025

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NP English
Thu, 01 May 2025 16:02:08 IST
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In a decisive move to improve the efficiency and reliability of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has mandated quicker response times for key UPI services. In a circular dated April 26, the NPCI directed all banks and payment service providers to implement the updated standards by June 16, 2025.


The revised timelines aim to enhance the user experience by minimizing delays during transaction requests, status checks, and reversals. Below is a comparison of the old and new response times:

UPI API Current Limit New Timeline (from June 16, 2025)
  • Request Pay / Response Pay 30 seconds 15 seconds
  • Check Transaction Status 30 seconds 10 seconds
  • Transaction Reversal 30 seconds 10 seconds
  • Validate Address 15 seconds (No change)

NPCI emphasized that while these new benchmarks are intended to streamline transactions, they should not compromise service quality. All UPI participants are expected to adopt the standards without increasing technical declines or triggering outages.


This move comes in response to a partial UPI system outage on April 12, where several users experienced transaction failures. NPCI quickly acknowledged the incident and promised a swift resolution to prevent recurrence.

UPI continues to grow rapidly in India. As per government data released on May 1, the platform handled 596 million transactions in April, slightly higher than the 590 million recorded in March. The system facilitates monthly digital payments worth over ₹25 lakh crore.


However, reliability concerns have been rising. In March and April, users of apps like Google Pay and PhonePe faced serious service disruptions due to multiple outages. Three major breakdowns occurred in less than a month—on March 26, April 1, and April 12—raising concerns about the platform’s backend robustness.

Following internal investigations, NPCI traced the issue to a technical design flaw: the system lacked a limiter on the "Check Transaction Status" API. This led to flooding of requests, especially by some PSP (Payment Service Provider) banks that repeatedly queried older transactions, causing overloads and system instability.

With the new guidelines in place, NPCI aims to balance transaction speed with system stability, restoring user trust in the fast-growing digital payment ecosystem.