Make UPI transactions faster soon: Thanks to this move by NPCI these transactions to be processed 50% faster

Starting June 16, 2025, your UPI transactions, both debit and credit-based, are expected to take just 15 seconds to finish, as opposed to the 30 seconds taken at present. This is thanks to a new NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) mandate, which has directed a reduction in API response time for various financial and non-financial UPI activities.

Response time refers to the total time taken for a transaction to complete, from initiation to the final settlement or confirmation of the transaction status.

Response for other activities, such as checking transaction status and for transaction reversal (both debit and credit), will also come down by as much as 75%, effective June 2025. From the present response time of 30 seconds, finishing checking your transaction status or reversing erroneous transactions comes down to just 10 seconds.

Read on to know how this will impact your UPI transacting experience and if making these adjustments could potentially mean more UPI downtime.

Read more: Less UPI fraud now thanks to this new feature: You will know exactly whom you are making UPI payment to

Time to undertake; check transaction status to come down significantly

Think of it this way. Say you visit a shop and buy something worth Rs 500. You open your ICICI bank’s iMobile app to scan the QR code and pay. The QR is linked to an HDFC bank account.

So, ICICI Bank will generate a request to pay for funds to be transferred to the shop owner, i.e., the beneficiary, which will be transferred via the NPCI network to HDFC Bank. Depending on whether the transaction is successful or not, i.e., whether Rs 500 has been transferred or not, HDFC Bank will generate a response to pay, which will again be relayed via the NPCI network to ICICI Bank. Previously, this took 30 seconds. But starting June, this time is expected to come down to 15 seconds.

Experts say that these changes will mean that not just the time to undertake these transactions, but also the time to check their status will come down markedly.

“PSP banks/acquiring banks shall initiate the first check transaction status API 90 seconds after the initiation/authentication of the original transaction. After the timers are changed, members may initiate the same after 45 to 60 seconds of the initiation/authentication of the original transaction, after NPCI revised communication”, the circular elaborates.

This means that starting June 16, 2025, PSPs (Paytm, PhonePe) and other acquiring banks can initiate the first check transaction API anytime between 45 and 60 seconds after transaction initiation or authentication, instead of waiting for 90 seconds from the time a UPI transaction was initiated or authenticated by the user.

In short, you no longer have to wait longer for checking the final status of your transaction in case it does not reflect as successful or is shown as stuck or pending.

“A check transaction API" is typically used to verify or initiate financial transactions, such as checking payment status, validating account details, or confirming the readiness to proceed with a transaction. The 90-second delay was mandated to give the transaction enough time to naturally process and reach a conclusive status, either success or failure, without putting unnecessary load on the system through early or repeated status checks,” explains Jai Kumar, Co-Founder of TechFini.

“The change aims to reduce the time users wait for clarity on their transaction status, especially in cases where the final status isn't received promptly due to network delays or system issues,” he adds. This change would significantly reduce latency and improve the turnaround time for transaction resolution for consumers.

Moreover, this API will not be triggered in certain instances, such as connection timeout, port unreachable, and more. In such cases, the transaction will have been considered as failed. “According to NPCI logs, around 3-5% of transaction failures in peak hours stem from network or handshake-related failures,” says Rohit Mahajan, Managing Partner and Founder, plutos ONE

This is because if the transaction didn’t even reach the UPI system in the first place—because of a network timeout, server not responding, or a TLS handshake error—then there’s nothing to check, explains Deepak Chand Thakur, Co-Founder and CEO, NPST

"In these cases, the transaction never made it to NPCI (the body that runs UPI), so it wasn’t processed or forwarded to the other bank. As a result, using the Check Transaction Status API won’t return any useful information and will only overload NPCI systems," he adds.

To further strengthen the status check of transactions, “PSP banks/acquiring banks may initiate a maximum of 3 check transaction status APIs, preferably within 2 hours from the initiation/authentication of the original transaction.”

How will this impact the customer?

Says Mahajan, “From a customer’s standpoint, these changing rules around API rules and timing requirements will mean an incredibly easier and more reliable transaction experience.”

For customers, this certainly means quicker updates on the status of their transactions, reducing the waiting time for confirmations. Moreover, they will also know whether their payment was successful or not in a shorter span. The likelihood of prematurely flagging a transaction as failed due to temporary issues will come down, along with fewer unnecessary reversals and refunds.

"Customers can certainly expect faster detection and resolution of transaction issues, clear procedures for handling errors bolster confidence in digital payments, and more efficient dispute resolution mechanisms contribute to a
better user experience. However, during the initial implementation phase, there may be minor adjustments as
systems and personnel adapt to the new guidelines," says Bhargav Errangi, CEO & Founder POP UPI.

But, with stakeholders in the UPI ecosystem bringing themselves to meet these revised guidelines, should customers expect downtimes and outages in the meantime?

According to Rahul Jain, CFO, NTT DATA Payment Services India, India’s UPI infrastructure is robust enough to handle this. Moreover, experts also note that NPCI may impose financial penalties for non-compliance with the agreed-upon timelines, which may further encourage compliance on the part of UPI ecosystem players.

“The structure of these penalties can vary based on the severity and recurrence of the delay and may be applied per instance, per transaction block, or on a monthly basis, depending on the criticality and frequency of the breach”, elaborates Kumar.