Unified Payments Interface (UPI) services experienced a widespread outage across India on Thursday evening, disrupting digital transactions for thousands of users and causing chaos for businesses reliant on cashless payments. This marks the fourth major UPI disruption in 2025, raising concerns about the reliability of the nation’s most widely used payment platform.

The issue began around 7:45 PM, with users reporting failures on platforms such as Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm, and others. By 8:30 PM, outage tracking website DownDetector had recorded over 2,100 complaints, with nearly 80% of them related to failed transactions. The glitch appeared to affect a wide range of financial institutions, including HDFC Bank, State Bank of India (SBI), Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Bank of Baroda.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which manages the UPI framework, has not yet issued an official statement explaining the cause of the disruption.

UPI continues to be the backbone of India’s digital economy, accounting for nearly 65% of all digital transactions in 2024, according to fintech firm Phi Commerce. While UPI remains a preferred method for low- and mid-value transactions, sectors like healthcare, education, and automobiles are seeing a rise in credit card and EMI usage.

The recurring technical issues have sparked a debate on the need for infrastructure upgrades and better contingency measures to handle the massive volume of daily UPI transactions.