NPCI to Enforce UPI Usage Rules from August 1 to Boost Security

• NPCI to enforce UPI usage caps from August 1, 2025.
• Repeated balance/status checks cited as system stressors.
• Rules aim to enhance network efficiency for 6B+ monthly transactions.'

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) will unveil a new set of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) regulations on August 1, 2025. The new regulations are intended to improve everyday users' efficiency, safety, and stability when making digital payments. The regulations will apply to all popular UPI apps such Paytm, Google Pay, PhonePe, etc.

The rules relate to things like payment execution, checking balance, transaction history, and autopay requirements. Although they are generally benign, the NPCI did cite repeated attempts as a very serious problem area for stability.

New UPI Rules From August 1

• Now, all the users will be able to view linked bank accounts to a phone number not more than 25 times a day.
• Users will be allowed to check their balance 50 times a day.
• Users will be allowed to check the payment status of a transaction only three times, and they should maintain a gap of at least 90 seconds every time.
• Autopay transactions on various platforms will have fixed timeslots.

Also Read: DeepSeek Risks Removal from Apple, Google App Stores in Germany

In the past few months, mainly April to May 2025, we have seen a increase in complaints about transactions taking longer than expected or system outages. NPCI has internally analyzed the uptick in complaints and cited two activities as the reason for network congestion: continual balance checks and repetitive requests for payment statuses. These habits doubled backend loads and slowed services for all users.

Currently, UPI processes over 6 billion transactions per month, and managing the network efficiently became top priority. The revised rules include soft usage caps to relieve traffic while giving the user ample access for their typical day.

NPCI has framed these limits as pro-user and has emphasized that they are not intended to limit user convenience, but rather to support a more resilient, responsive payment ecosystem. This is indicative of NPCI's long-term vision of building UPI in a way that creates a payments framework that could globally benchmark and be scalability.