As per the NPCI circular, new rules regarding APIs will kick in with regards to UPI Payment. The rules will be effective from 1 August 2025.
)
The NPCI has issued a circular that requires banks and PSPs to limit the use of the ten most-used APIs on the UPI network by July 31, 2025. These APIs include balance inquiry, fulfilling autopay mandate and checking transaction status among others. These changes are expected from August 1.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has said that repeated API (application programming interface) requests increase pressure on the UPI network, increasing the risk of system downtime.
According to the guidelines, UPI apps should limit balance enquiry requests to reduce the load in peak hours. The NPCI has set a daily cap of 50 apps per customer in 24 hours.
The NPCI has also directed issuer banks to notify users of the available balance in their accounts after every financial transaction.
The NPCI has directed Initiator Payment Service Providers (PSPs) to commence UPI autopay executions at a moderated transaction per second and during non-peak hours. The NPCI has allowed a maximum of one attempt and three retries per autopay mandate.
According to the guidelines, users will be able to check bank accounts linked to their mobile number only 25 times a day per app.
NPCI has directed all banks and payment service providers like Paytm, PhonePe and others to keep an eye on API usage. “PSP banks and/or acquiring banks shall ensure all the API requests (in terms of velocity and TPS — transactions per second limitations) sent to UPI are monitored and moderated in terms of appropriate usage (customer-initiated and PSP system-initiated),” the circular said.
According to the circular, PSPs and banks may face API restrictions, penalties, suspension of new customer onboarding or others as deemed appropriate by NPCI in case of failure to comply with directions. PSPs have been asked to submit an undertaking to NPCI by August 31, 2025.
Newsletter
