New UPI rules from August: 50 balance checks/day, timed autopay
What's the story
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has announced new rules for Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions, effective August 1, 2025.
The rules cap balance inquiries to a maximum of 50 per app per customer daily and restrict autopay mandates to non-peak hours.
Banks will also have to send balance updates with transaction notifications and stagger transaction status checks throughout the day.
API regulation
NPCI's directive to banks and PSPs
In a recent circular, NPCI has directed all banks and Payment Service Providers (PSPs) like Paytm, PhonePe, etc., to regulate the use of 10 key APIs on the UPI network from July 31, 2025.
These APIs include balance inquiry requests, autopay mandate execution, and checking transaction status, among others.
UPI users will now be able to conduct these transactions only a specific number of times during the day.
API restrictions
Consequences of non-compliance with NPCI's directives
Failure to adhere to these new rules may lead to API restrictions, penalties, suspension of new customer onboarding, or any other action NPCI finds appropriate for PSPs and banks.
The circular also says all PSPs must submit an undertaking to NPCI by August 31, 2025, assuring all system-initiated APIs will be "queued and rate-limited."
Non-customer-initiated APIs must be restricted during peak hours (10:00am to 1:00pm and 5:00pm to 9:30pm).
User inconvenience
Impact on UPI users and traders
The balance inquiry API, enabling UPI users to check their account balance, has been restricted to 50 per app per customer per day starting July 31.
Meaning, if you're using both Paytm and PhonePe, you'll only be able to check your account balances on these apps 50 times each within a 24-hour window.
Ezeepay COO Musharraf Hussain said this could inconvenience traders and other users who frequently check their balances or transactions.
Transaction regulations
Autopay mandates and transaction status checks
Autopay mandates on UPI, letting users authorize their bank for automatic debits on a recurring basis, will only be processed during non-peak hours.
"A maximum of 1 attempt with 3 tries per mandate can be initiated at moderated TPS only during non-peak hours for autopay mandate," the NPCI circular states.
For transaction status checks, banks and PSPs must stagger calls to the first check transaction status API for at least 90 seconds from when the transaction is authenticated.