 "‘Moving towards cash again?’ UPI down in India for third time within a month")
India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), one of the world’s fastest payment systems, faced another major outage on Saturday (April 12), marking third such disruption within a month.
Downdetector showed users reporting the outage starting 11:26 am IST. Several users also took to X and Facebook to share their frustration as their transactions collapsed mid-way on payment platforms such as PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm.
UPI-maker the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) later acknowledged the reports and cited “intermittent technical issues” for the outage. In its statement, the NPCI said it was working to resolve the issue.
“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,” the regulator said.
The Saturday outage is believed to have caused disruptions to services of major banks like HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, and Kotak Mahindra Bank.
Previous UPI disruptions
The UPI was hit by a major snag on March 26 as the users nationwide faced problems completing their transactions.
The NPCI in a statement later said, “NPCI had faced intermittent technical issues owing to which UPI had partial decline. The same has been addressed now and the system has stabilised. Regret the inconvenience."
The second such outage was observed on April 2.
Why is UPI significant?
According to a report by digital payments company Phi Commerce, UPI now accounts for 65 per cent of all digital transactions in India — making it a true game-changer in the world of payments.
While UPI is the go-to option for small to medium purchases (like tea, groceries, or your go-to street momo guy), credit cards and EMIs are still popular for big-ticket expenses.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe report also highlights that people lean heavily on credit during certain times — like festive seasons, school admission months, or when big sales pop up.
Social media reactions
Livid users said the frequent service disruption was causing a big headache to businesses as well as consumers.
“The way they are treating upi and keeping it down at random hours is getting really scary day by day. Affecting many small scale businesses and shops. Are we moving towards cash again?” wrote one user.
The way they are treating upi and keeping it down at random hours is getting really scary day by day. Affecting many small scale businesses and shops. Are we moving towards cash again?
— Chirag Barjatya (@chiragbarjatyaa) April 12, 2025
“Just finished lunch like a boss but when I tried paying via UPI—boom! Server down. Now I’m just sitting in hotel like a wanted criminal full stomach but cooked RIP to me!” a second said.
A third questioned: “This never happened for so many years. Is this a way to introduce some kind of charge for making UPI payments in future?”
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