The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) confirmed the development and attributed the outage to “increased latency” in the UPI network.
Users across India faced significant issues with Google Pay and UPI services, as reports of UPI transaction failures surged on Downdetector around 7:27 PM. Several users encountered Google Pay transaction issues, with payments failing or taking unusually long to process. While many assumed a UPI server issue, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) later clarified that there was no official outage but rather an "intermittent delay" affecting select transactions.
This incident comes just a day after SBI service disruptions, where customers struggled to complete online banking transactions. The back-to-back technical glitches have raised concerns about the reliability of UPI services, especially as digital payments continue to dominate daily financial transactions.
Affected platforms included Google Pay (GPay), PhonePe, and BHIM UPI, with users taking to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to express frustration. Many users posted screenshots of failed payments, questioning the stability of India's real-time payment infrastructure.
While NPCI attributed the Google Pay outage to increased latency in the UPI network, the recurring disruptions highlight the need for stronger backend infrastructure to support India's rapidly growing digital economy. Experts suggest that with UPI adoption skyrocketing, consistent server stability and faster issue resolution will be crucial to maintaining public trust in the system.
Also Read: NPCI to deactivate UPI IDs linked to inactive numbers from April 1
