India’s digital payment system is getting a major upgrade. Starting June 16, 2025, people across the country will be able to make UPI payments faster than before. Currently, a UPI transaction usually takes about 30 seconds. However by the new move by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) will slash this 30 seconds to 15 seconds for the payment to go through. This change will make sending and receiving money quicker and smoother.

On April 26, 2025, NPCI released a circular explaining new updates to the UPI system. It said that not just status checks and reversals, but even sending or receiving money will become faster- the time will reduce from 30 seconds to 15 seconds. Also, the time to verify an address will drop from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. These changes aim to make UPI payments quicker and smoother for the users.

Changes In UPI From June 16, 2025

• UPI transaction time reduced from 30 seconds to 15 seconds
• API response time halved for all banks and platforms
• Status checks and refunds to process 75% faster
• UPI hit 17.89 billion transactions in April 2025, marking a 34% increase from last year
• Total UPI transaction value in April stood at ₹23.95 lakh crore

As per reports, after June 16, if you are initiating a UPI payment, When you scan a merchant’s QR code to make a UPI payment, the code is linked to the merchant’s Bank account (For example, HDFC). Your payment request travels from your bank (for example, ICICI Bank) to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which manages the UPI system, and then to HDFC Bank. HDFC processes the request and sends a response back through NPCI to ICICI. This entire process currently takes up to 30 seconds to complete. However, the entire process will take only 15 seconds.

How Will It Work?

To support faster UPI transactions, banks and Payment Service Providers (PSPs) will implement upgraded API gateways that can handle more transactions at the same time with lower delays. Additionally, banks will reduce the time taken to verify delayed transactions. Previously, they could initiate status verification only after waiting 90 seconds. Under the new guidelines, they will start this process within 45–60 seconds, enabling quicker resolution of failed or pending payments. Banks will also process refunds much faster. What currently takes around 2–3 minutes will now take only 30–45 seconds, improving the system’s efficiency by up to 75%.