Nationwide UPI outage leaves users stranded, disrupts daily transactions

The outage started around midday, prompting a surge of complaints on social media and Downdetector, a platform that tracks service disruptions in real time. At the height of the issue, Downdetector logged more than 2,300 reports—81% related to failed payments and 17% linked to problems with fund transfers. Major banking apps from SBI, ICICI, and HDFC were also affected, pointing to a broader issue within the UPI network infrastructure.

Hyderabad: Major UPI outage leaving thousands in India without payment or transfer facility on 12 April 2025. The critical disruption, which affected popular digital payment platforms such as Google Pay, Paytm, and PhonePe, unleashed such agitation among users and also rendered visible the growing national reliance on cashlessness.

The outage began at about noon after which users poured complaints into social media as well as into Downdetector, which is a real-time outage monitoring platform. The peak saw Downdetector record above 2300 reports, with 81% of users unable to complete payments and 17% unable to transfer funds. Notably, thus happened even in the apps of banking giants SBI, ICICI, and HDFC; suggesting larger systemic failure at some level in the insides of UPI infrastructure.

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For many people in India, UPI has almost become a direct thing-of life-to-buy vegetables, go pay their bills, pay their rents, everything. As people across the nation failed to transact, some people quipped that, “Carry cash next time” while other users demanded better communication from authorities.

That makes three outages now in less than three weeks: an outage on March 26, another on April 2. There is a silence at the end of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which runs UPI, since it has yet to make an announcement regarding the latest failing.

In the absence of clarity, experts recommend keeping credit cards, debit cards, or cash as backup payment options.