UPI Outages Due To Tech Problems On Banks’ End, Not NPCI: RBI Governor

The disruptions in the UPI payments system are not due to any glitch with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) but due to outages on the end of the banks, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das said.

During a press conference after the RBI’s monetary policy committee meeting last week, Das said, “In all cases of downtime, we check if there is an outage from the NPCI end, but there is no problem from the NPCI end. The problem is from the banks and their links which may be due to many reasons and we are dealing with it.”

The statement came in the backdrop of increasing outages being seen by the UPI system. Multiple reports suggested last week that users who placed orders for mutual fund units on June 4, the day votes for the Lok Sabha elections were being counted, were given NAV for June 5. After this, the BSE clarified that there was no technical glitch on its end and there was a lag in receiving payments from UPI channel for a few customers.

During the conference, Das noted that all regulated entities are required to report their planned as well as unplanned system outages. Moreover, following the efforts of the RBI, such outages have reduced to less than 1%.

“Whenever there is an outage, our team engages with the bank to supervise and find out the reason behind the outage. We study all the aspects and in case there is a deficiency, we sensitise the particular bank. The RBI’s supervision is very alert regarding this and we take prompt action accordingly,” he said. 

Earlier this year, the NPCI acknowledged that there was an outage in the UPI system after users complained on social media about the same. 

The NPCI then wrote in a post on X, “Regret inconvenience on UPI connectivity as a few of the banks are having some internal technical issues. NPCI systems are working fine and we are working with these banks to ensure quick resolution.”

Meanwhile, RBI deputy governor T Rabi Sankar, during the conference, underlined the role of UPI Lite in countering pressure on the banking system. 

“The purpose of the UPI Lite wallet is to reduce the pressure from the banking system so that UPI payments don’t hit banks’ systems. As the UPI Lite transactions increase, the pressure on banks’ systems will also decrease, so all these efforts are going on because of which downtime will decrease,” he said.

Introduced in 2022, UPI Lite enables quick and seamless small-value payments through an on-device wallet. 

Last week, the RBI also proposed a facility to allow customers to automatically replenish their UPI Lite wallets within the ambit of its e-mandate framework.

The developments come at a time when the number of UPI transactions continue to be on the rise. In May, UPI transactions rose 5% month-on-month (MoM) to 14.04 Bn from 13.30 Bn in the previous month. As per the NPCI data, the transaction volume in May stood at INR 20.45 Lakh Cr, up 4.1% from April’s 19.64 Lakh Cr.

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.