New Delhi: Digital payment systems across India experienced major disruption on Saturday as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) suffered a widespread outage, affecting millions of users attempting transactions through popular platforms such as Google Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm. This marks the third significant UPI outage in less than a month, raising concerns over the reliability of the country’s most widely used digital payments system.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the UPI infrastructure, acknowledged the issue in a post on X (formerly Twitter), stating that the platform was experiencing “intermittent technical issues” that led to a partial decline in UPI transactions.
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.
— NPCI (@NPCI_NPCI) March 26, 2025
“We are working to resolve the issue and will keep you updated. We regret the inconvenience caused,” NPCI stated.
Users from across the country reported failed payments, long delays, and repeated transaction errors throughout the day, causing significant inconvenience, particularly to small businesses and vendors who heavily rely on UPI for day-to-day operations.
While the exact cause of the disruption remains unclear, NPCI assured that its technical teams were actively working to restore full functionality. As of late Saturday evening, some users reported services slowly resuming.
The recurrence of such outages in quick succession has sparked public and industry concerns, prompting calls for greater resilience and transparency in managing India’s rapidly expanding digital payment infrastructure.
