UPI AutoPay’s endless woes forcing an industry rethink

55-90% of automated payments on UPI AutoPay didn’t go through in Aug, NPCI data shows

- Salman SH

India’s subscription economy is crawling back to cards for recurring payments, as businesses and customers grow weary of Unified Payments Interface’s (UPI) AutoPay feature hitting failure rates of up to 90%.

August data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which runs the UPI for real-time bank transfers, indicate that 55-90% of automated payments across public and private banks on UPI AutoPay didn’t go through during the month.

The high failure rate was largely because of factors such as insufficient balances in bank accounts and incorrect beneficiary details, per NPCI’s data. But, according to industry experts, this has triggered involuntary cancellations of subscriptions, elevating churn for startups that rely on recurring payments.

Executives at software companies and video streaming platforms