UPI Services Disrupted Again; Users Report Outages on PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) services faced yet another widespread disruption across India on Friday, leaving users frustrated as leading payment apps such as PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm became unresponsive. The latest outage, reported by thousands of users, is the third such incident in less than a month, raising concerns about the reliability and resilience of India’s digital payments infrastructure.
By noon, outage tracking website Down Detector had recorded over 1,000 complaints related to UPI service disruptions. Users took to social media to voice their frustrations, with many reporting failed transactions and error messages citing slow network connectivity.
The outage appeared to impact multiple banks and platforms simultaneously, suggesting a deeper systemic issue possibly linked to the UPI backend managed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
This is not an isolated incident. On March 26, UPI services had similarly gone down, prompting the NPCI to issue a statement attributing the issue to technical problems. Another brief disruption was also reported on April 2. Despite the recurrence, the NPCI has yet to release an official statement regarding the latest glitch.
Frequent disruptions have led to growing unease among consumers and businesses who rely heavily on UPI for daily transactions. With digital payments forming the backbone of India’s cashless economy, uninterrupted service is critical.
As the outage continues to trend across social media platforms, digital payment providers and banks are expected to seek urgent clarification from the NPCI. Industry experts have also called for robust failover mechanisms and greater transparency in incident reporting to maintain trust in the system.
Stakeholders now await a formal response from the NPCI detailing the cause of the outage and the steps being taken to prevent future occurrences.
