The Internet and social media were flooded with jokes and funny memes after the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) services experienced an outage on Saturday afternoon, April 12. Google Pay (GPay), PhonePe, and Paytm application users were unable to make financial transactions on their mobile phones as UPI faced an outage affecting lakhs of users in India. Even direct bank transfers through UPI were not working, affecting merchants and individual users across the nation.
According to the outage tracking portal Downdetector, over 2,000 UPI users reported a server down and not responding error during the digital money transfer at around 1 p.m. today. About 81% of users are unable to make payments, 17% reported problems faced during fund transfers, and 2% are unable to purchase online goods via UPI.
Also Read | UPI Down: Google Pay, PhonePe Users Unable To Perform Financial Transactions on Mobile.
Several users are frustrated and show their frustration on social media while sharing screen grabs of their mobiles. Many users complain that they are stuck in restaurants and shops and not carrying cash, but they are also not able to do online transactions as the UPI services hit hard. In the middle of the networks, never stay back, they took to the internet with funny memes and jokes.
An X (formerly Twitter) user wrote while sharing a GIF image with the caption "Mujhe Apne Ghar Jaana Hai" that he was stuck somewhere because he was unable to do UPI payment. "What the hell is wrong with UPI? 1 ghante se dukan pe baitha hu payment karne ke liye. Koi cash leke aao bc," wrote an X user named Suyash Mehta.
Another user sent an image with a Hindi caption and a dog photo washing plates and utensils in a restaurant due to UPI being down.
UPI is a crucial payment system in India, with crores of users, mostly the younger population, using it for digital transactions. UP is managed and integrated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates under the guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). It allows users to transfer money in seconds with a UPI ID and bank details without any charges.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the UPI services, posted on X social media platform that the disruptions were due to technical issues. "NPCI is currently facing intermittent technical issues, leading to partial UPI transaction declines. We are working to resolve the issue and will keep you updated. We regret the inconvenience caused," the NPCI, shared in a post on social media platform X.