On March 26, 2025, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) experienced a significant outage that affected millions of users across India. The disruption began around 7:00 PM and lasted for approximately an hour, causing widespread inconvenience as users reported issues with various payment platforms, including Google Pay and PhonePe.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which manages UPI operations, issued an official statement acknowledging the problems. They attributed the outage to “intermittent technical issues” that led to partial transaction failures. NPCI confirmed that the issues had been resolved by around 8:15 PM and expressed regret for the inconvenience caused to users.
During the outage, reports of transaction failures surged, with Downdetector noting over 23,000 complaints from users. Many individuals took to social media to express their frustration, highlighting that this was the first time they had encountered downtime with UPI services.
UPI is a crucial component of India's digital payment ecosystem, facilitating instant bank transfers and accounting for a significant portion of the country's digital transactions. Despite the brief disruption, it underscored the heavy reliance on UPI for everyday commerce in India, where it records over 17 billion transactions monthly.
As UPI services have now stabilized, NPCI has assured users that measures have been implemented to prevent similar issues in the future.
