NPCI Rolls Out New UPI Rules to Ease Load and Prevent Failures

What are the new rules? Let’s break them down.

1. Balance enquiry limit: Users can check their bank balance only 50 times per day per UPI app. After a successful transaction, the remaining account balance will be displayed automatically, reducing the need for manual checks
2. Linked account view limit: Viewing the list of bank accounts linked to your UPI ID is now capped at 25 times a day to prevent excessive API requests.
3. Rigorous autopay timing: The users can execute UPI Autopay mandates such as electricity bills, water bills, OTT subscriptions, etc., only during non-peak hours. “Peak hours are defined as the period during the day when UPI financial transactions reach the highest transactions per second, observed from 10:00 hours to 13:00 hours and from 17:00 hours to 21:30 hours. Any other time shall be referred to as non-peak hour.
4. Transaction status checks: If a UPI transaction is stuck or pending, you can now check its status only three times, with at least a 90-second gap between checks to ease server stress.
5. Issuer has to send notification: According to the directives of the NPCI, the issuer banks will have to notify users of the available balance in their accounts after every financial transaction.
6. New users’ upper limit: For new users, there is a UPI transfer limit that is often put in place. Banks usually allow a UPI transfer of ₹5,000 per transaction and a cumulative ₹5,000 for the initial period for new users within the first 24 hours.