The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system reported down on Monday evening , May 12, as several users were unable to do financial transactions online through Google Pay and PhonePe. UPI is a popular instant payment system integrated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates under the supervision of the Reserve Bank of India. It enables users to transfer money instantly between bank accounts through mobile apps without any charges from NPCI.
For many merchants and consumers who rely on UPI for daily payments, the sudden outage caused inconvenience during peak usage hours. There has been no official comment yet from NPCI, the body that manages UPI, about the cause of the issue. This disruption comes at a time when UPI usage in India is breaking records. In March, UPI handled over 18.3 billion transactions, up from 16.11 billion in February. The value of these transactions reached Rs 24.77 lakh crore, showing growing dependence on digital payments.