NPCI's new rules speed up UPI: How it impacts your daily transactions

Banks and payment service providers asked to cut response times for key processes so that payment service's quality improves
UPI transactions should become faster starting this week after the organisation that manages the digital payments system asked member banks and payment service providers to reduce response time for key processes.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), in a circular dated April 26, 2025, has revised the turnaround time for several APIs (application programming interfaces), the technology that facilitates UPI (Unified Payments Interface) transactions between banks and apps. Here are the key changes:
Request pay (debit and credit):
Transaction reversals:
Time allowed reduced to 10 seconds from the earlier 30 seconds
Validate address for pay/collect requests:
Must be processed within 8 seconds, earlier limit was 10 seconds
These changes apply across multiple stakeholders, including payer and payee Payment Service Providers, banks, and apps. ALSO READ | India's first credit card with UPI and Visa in one - and zero forex fees
How does it help UPI users
Faster API responses mean:
Quicker confirmations for your payments, especially during peak hours or high-traffic days
Reduced wait time for failed transaction reversals
Lower chances of payment timeouts or declines due to slow backend processes
'With 15-second UPI processing, payments will now be faster and more reliable, a win-win for India's 350 million users,' says Sarika Shetty, chief executive officer & co-founder, RentenPe. 'This will ease load during peak hours, improve gateway efficiency, and encourage more people to choose UPI over IMPS or NEFT, especially as UPI expands into rural areas and global markets.'
What banks and apps must do:
NPCI has asked all UPI participants to upgrade their systems to comply with the new response time. They must also ensure that these changes don't increase the number of technical declines (failures due to system issues).
With this move, NPCI is clearly signalling its focus on streamlining the digital payment experience, especially as UPI expands into offline, credit, and international use cases.

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