UPI Outage Disrupts Payments Across India: Users Report Issues on PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm

Ganpat Singh Chouhan

NEW DELHI, April 12 India’s real-time payment system, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), faced yet another widespread outage on Friday, leaving thousands of users stranded in the middle of digital transactions. The disruption impacted major payment apps including Google Pay, Paytm, and PhonePe, triggering a flood of complaints across social media and monitoring platforms.

What Happened?

The outage reportedly began around 11:26 AM IST and peaked by 11:41 AM, according to outage tracking platform DownDetector, which logged over 222 complaints in under 15 minutes. By noon, the number of reported issues had surged to 1,168, with:

96 complaints related to Google Pay
23 complaints linked to Paytm

Several users also reported delays in transaction confirmations and failed QR code payments during this window.

No Response from NPCI Yet

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the governing body behind UPI, has not issued an official statement regarding the cause of Friday’s disruption. This marks the sixth major outage of the platform in the past year.

The most notable breakdown occurred on March 26, when UPI services were disrupted for nearly three hours, severely affecting both consumers and merchants nationwide.

Growing Concerns Over UPI Reliability

While UPI continues to dominate India’s digital payment ecosystem, frequent outages have raised questions about infrastructure robustness and platform scalability, especially as UPI transactions regularly exceed 10 billion per month.

The latest outage comes just days after NPCI restricted the use of QR codes for international UPI transactions, citing the need for improved payer identification. Domestic QR payments remain unaffected by that directive.

Impact on Users and Businesses

The sudden halt in digital payments disrupted:

Retail transactions at kirana stores
Online shopping checkouts
P2P transfers between individuals

Many users took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to vent frustration, tagging NPCI, RBI, and payment app support teams.

Looking Ahead: Need for Transparency and Redundancy

As digital payments form the backbone of India’s cashless economy, experts urge greater transparency from NPCI and a comprehensive communication strategy during downtimes. Businesses are also being encouraged to maintain alternative payment options, including credit/debit cards and wallets, to minimize disruption during UPI outages.

Author Profile

Ganpat Singh Chouhan: My name is Ganpat Singh Choughan. I am an experienced content writer with 7 years of expertise in the field. Currently, I contribute to Daily Kiran, creating engaging and informative content across a variety of categories including TECHNOLOGY, health, travel, education, and automobiles. My goal is to deliver accurate, insightful, and captivating information through my words to help readers stay informed and empowered.