Faster and smarter UPI- New guidelines enhance digital transactions in India

India's digital payment landscape has taken a significant leap forward with the introduction of new updates to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) services. Managed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), these changes are now live and promise faster and more efficient money transfers and receipts.
Announced earlier on April 26, 2025, these updates are aimed at making digital payments quicker and more convenient. From today onwards, online money transactions will be significantly faster. Banks, partner institutions, and popular payment apps such as PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm are expected to benefit from these changes.

Also Read: Rising UPI outages highlight gaps in India’s digital payment infrastructure 

In addition to faster transactions, several new features will be rolled out starting July. These include enhanced balance check options, auto payment execution, and account visibility improvements. One key update is that users will now be able to check their bank account balance up to 50 times a day. Moreover, users can view all accounts linked to their mobile number within the UPI apps.

A cap of 25 requests per day per UPI application has also been introduced to manage system load efficiently.
As for auto payment mandates:
1. Instead of just one retry, users will now get up to three retry attempts for failed auto-debit transactions.
2. These retries will occur during non-peak hours to avoid overloading the system.
3. Peak hours have been defined as 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM to 9:30 PM.
These changes aim to enhance user convenience, improve system efficiency, and support the growing demand for digital payments in India.