Why does UPI fail so often for banks like SBI?

While transaction failures continue to rise, some lenders are reluctant to upgrade their outdated digital infrastructure given the lack of incentives.

There is a brief moment of anxiety that everyone who makes payments using the Unified Payments Interface is accustomed to by now. It occurs as soon as you enter your PIN on a UPI-enabled app. What follows is the wait for the transaction to be approved—by the customer’s bank, the merchant’s bank, the app and the merchant’s payment partner. 

Finally, the pop-up on your phone notifying that the payment has been successful brings relief. 

No matter which bank or payment app we use, most of us have seen our UPI transactions fall through while money is still debited from our …

Author

Ashwin Manikandan

Ashwin covered fintech and banking at The Morning Context. Previously, he was at The Economic Times, where he worked across the finance, tech and startup verticals, breaking stories related to India’s banking system, startups in the new economy, digital payments, insurance and cryptocurrencies.

Writer

ashwin@mailtmc.com

Delhi