Winning Bizness Desk

Mumbai. Starting August 1, 2025, new rules for Unified Payments Interface (UPI) will be applied to all users, banks, and merchants. The main changes include a limit on balance checks, fixed time slots for auto-pay transactions, and restrictions on checking payment status repeatedly. These steps aim to reduce the load on the UPI system, which often slows down during peak hours due to excessive traffic.

Daily Limit on Balance Checks

Users will now be allowed to check their bank balance only 50 times a day per UPI app. Earlier, there was no such limit, and many users checked their balances repeatedly, especially during uncertain transactions. This created heavy traffic on the servers, which affected the speed and reliability of the UPI service. The new rule will help manage this issue more effectively.

Changes in Auto-Pay Timings

Auto-pay transactions like EMI payments, subscription charges (e.g., Netflix), and bill payments will now be processed only during non-peak hours. These time slots are:

* Before 10 AM
* Between 1 PM to 5 PM
* After 9:30 PM

This step is designed to ease the pressure on the UPI system during busy hours and ensure smoother and faster processing of scheduled payments.

Limited Checks on Failed Transactions

If a UPI payment fails or gets stuck, users will now be able to check its status only three times, and that too with a 90-second gap between each attempt. This rule is being introduced to avoid repeated refreshes which overload the servers, especially during busy timeframes.

Why These Changes Are Needed

According to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the body that manages UPI, these changes are necessary to reduce server overloads. In recent months, especially in March and April 2025, the UPI system experienced two major outages, affecting millions of users. These new rules are aimed at making the system faster, more reliable, and less prone to breakdowns.

What Users Need to Know

These rules will be applicable to all UPI users, no matter which app they use—PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, or any other. If you don’t frequently check your balance or transaction status, you may not notice any big change. Also, there is no change in the transaction amount limits, which remain at ₹1 lakh for regular use and ₹5 lakh for education and healthcare payments. Users don’t need to manually update anything; the changes will be automatically applied in all apps.

7 Key Points in a Nutshell

• From August 1, users can check their bank balance only 50 times a day via UPI.
• Auto-payments will be allowed only in specific time slots outside peak hours.
• Transaction status can be checked only 3 times with a 90-second gap.
• These steps are aimed at reducing server overload and outages.
• The rules apply to all UPI apps like PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm.
• No changes have been made to the maximum transaction amount limits.
• Users don’t need to do anything; updates will happen automatically in the app.