Google Pay, PhonePe, and Other UPI Services Down Across India for Over 1.5 Hours
New Delhi, 12 April (www.deccanlive.com): For more than one and a half hours, Google Pay, PhonePe, and other UPI (Unified Payments Interface) services were not working across India. People are facing problems in sending and receiving money using these apps. This is the third time in the last 20 days that such an issue has happened.
According to Downdetector,
- 68% of users faced issues while making payments,
- 31% had trouble sending money,
- and around 1% had problems while shopping online.
Earlier on March 26, UPI services were also down for about 2.5 hours. At that time, people faced trouble using Google Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm. More than 10 banks also had issues with their UPI and net banking services. Some users couldn’t even log in to their banking apps.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said there was a temporary technical problem, which caused a partial outage in UPI services. They also said the issue is now fixed and the system is stable again.
Some major banks that were affected include:
- SBI,
- HDFC Bank,
- Axis Bank,
- Bank of Baroda,
- Bank of India,
- Indian Bank,
- Kotak Mahindra Bank,
- and ICICI Bank.
PhonePe services resumed after about 2 hours, but some users continued to face minor issues afterward.
In India, RTGS and NEFT systems are managed by the RBI, while IMPS, RuPay, and UPI are operated by NPCI. Since January 1, 2020, the government has made UPI transactions free of charge under a zero-fee framework.
To use UPI, users need to create a virtual payment address (VPA) and link it to their bank account. After that, users don’t need to remember bank account numbers, IFSC codes, or other details. Payments can be made easily based on the mobile number.
If you have the receiver’s UPI ID (which can be their email ID, mobile number, or Aadhaar number), you can send money directly from your smartphone. You can also use UPI to pay utility bills, shop online, and make other purchases.
