Starting August 1, 2025, your UPI app may restrict how often you can check your balance or view account details—thanks to new operational guidelines from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

 What’s Changing — And Why?

To prevent system overloads and ensure the smooth functioning of UPI, NPCI is tightening rules around non-financial API calls, which are frequently overused and often unnecessary.

Here’s what’s being limited:

Balance Enquiries:
Capped at 50 requests per app per customer per day. To reduce the need for balance checks, banks must include the available balance in each successful UPI transaction.

Account Listings:
Limited to 25 times per app per customer daily. Every retry must be user-initiated, not system-triggered.

Autopay Mandates:
Execution must avoid peak hours (10 AM–1 PM & 5 PM–9:30 PM). Only one attempt, with up to three retries allowed.

Public Keys & Verified Merchants List:
Can be requested just once daily, and only during non-peak hours.

Transaction Status Checks:
Must follow NPCI’s existing staggered protocol to prevent spikes in load.

 Focus on System Discipline

NPCI has instructed all Payment Service Providers (PSPs) and acquiring banks to:

• Queue and monitor both customer-initiated and system-generated requests.

• Avoid acting as mere pass-throughs for backend API traffic.

• Restrict all non-essential API calls during peak hours.

Deadline & Enforcement

All UPI platforms must comply by July 31, 2025. Additionally, they must:

• Audit their systems via CERT-In empanelled auditors.

• Submit audit reports to NPCI by August 31, 2025.

Penalties for non-compliance may include API restrictions, fines, and even a ban on onboarding new customers.

These changes aim to ensure UPI continues to run fast, safe, and reliably for all users across India.

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