UPI technical failures rise at top banks as ICICI hits 0.73%
NPCI data shows technical UPI declines at the 20 biggest remitter banks rose to 0.24% in September from 0.18%, with ICICI, SBI and Kotak jumping.
Payments that fail because of a technical fault rose at India's biggest UPI banks in September. The technical decline rate across the 20 largest remitter banks went up to 0.24% from 0.18% in August, according to NPCI data reported by MediaNama on 2 November. At ICICI Bank the rate jumped from 0.03% to 0.73%, the highest among the 20 banks. The overall numbers are small, but at UPI's scale a few hundredths of a percentage point is millions of failed payments.
What the September data shows
The figures cover only the 20 largest remitter banks, which are the banks from whose accounts customers send money. They do not describe the whole UPI network. MediaNama, citing data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), reports that the technical decline rate across these banks rose from 0.18% in August to 0.24% in September.
Four banks stood out because their technical decline rates more than doubled over the month. ICICI Bank went from 0.03% to 0.73%. State Bank of India (SBI) rose from 0.10% to 0.38%. Kotak Mahindra Bank moved from 0.02% to 0.36%. Indian Overseas Bank went from 0.06% to 0.24%.
The business decline rate, which measures a different kind of failure, edged up from 10.85% to 10.88% across the same group. Together the 20 banks handled 23.47 billion transactions in September, down from 23.92 billion in August, according to the report. MediaNama also links to related NPCI reporting that total UPI transactions fell 1.8% to 24.07 billion in September, with a value of Rs 29.37 lakh crore and an average transaction size of Rs 1,012.
Technical declines and business declines are not the same
The two terms are easy to mix up, so it helps to separate them. A technical decline is a failure caused by the system: a bank's server being unavailable, or a network fault on the bank's side or NPCI's. The customer did nothing wrong. Think of a shop's card machine that freezes during a power cut.
A business decline is a payment that is rejected for a reason tied to the transaction. Examples given in the report are a wrong UPI PIN, wrong beneficiary details or a payment above a limit. Those are failures a user can often avoid. The highest business decline rates in September were at Fino Payments Bank (24.26%), Airtel Payments Bank (23.20%) and India Post Payments Bank (18.88%), the report says. A high business decline rate does not by itself mean a bank's system is weak, since it depends on how customers use their accounts.
The technical rate is the one that tells you about the bank's plumbing, and that is why the jump at a few large banks stands out.
How big a rise is it?
In percent terms the move from 0.18% to 0.24% looks tiny. In counts it is not. Using the report's own figures, 0.24% of 23.47 billion transactions is about 56 million technical failures in September, against about 43 million for August (0.18% of 23.92 billion). That is a rise of roughly 13 million failures, even though the banks handled fewer transactions. The arithmetic is derived by this site from the reported rates and volumes, not stated by NPCI or MediaNama, and it assumes the rate applies evenly to the quoted volume.
The report does not explain why the rates rose. It does not say whether the cause was a change in traffic patterns, a system upgrade or a fault at one or two banks, and it does not carry a response from the four banks named. Nothing in the data shows whether the rise is lasting or a one-month blip. One month of data cannot settle that.
Two patterns are visible, but their causes are not established. First, the rise is concentrated: ICICI, SBI, Kotak and IOB all more than doubled, while the group's average moved only from 0.18% to 0.24%. That suggests most of the other 16 banks were roughly flat, though the report does not list them. Second, the fall in volume handled by these banks does not match a rise in failures, which would be the expected direction if the system were simply overloaded.
Why these numbers get watched
NPCI publishes decline figures for the biggest remitter banks because UPI works only if every link in the chain holds: the customer's app, the sending bank, NPCI's switch, the receiving bank. When one link is slow, the whole payment can fail, and the customer blames whichever app they used even if the fault lay at the bank. Publishing bank-by-bank numbers is a way to make weak links visible.
The scale also explains why a small percentage matters. With 23.47 billion transactions handled by these 20 banks in a single month, even a rate of 0.24% means tens of millions of failed attempts. A rate of 0.73%, as at ICICI Bank, means about one payment in every 137 that the bank sent failed for technical reasons, while at 0.03% it was about one in 3,300. The report does not give each bank's volume, so how many payments each bank lost cannot be worked out from this source.
What it means for users and businesses
For an ordinary user, a technical decline usually shows up as a "payment failed" or "bank server down" message, and the money should not leave the account. If a debit does happen without the payment completing, banks are expected to reverse it, though how fast depends on the bank and on the reason code. The practical habit is to check the account before retrying, so as not to pay twice.
For a merchant, a technical failure at the customer's bank is lost sales in the moment. A shop that takes 500 UPI payments a day and sees one in every 400 fail for technical reasons (0.25%) loses about one payment and a customer's patience every day. Businesses can reduce the damage by offering a second way to pay, such as a card or a second UPI app on a different bank account.
For banks, these figures are public, so a sudden jump gets noticed by customers, rivals and regulators. NPCI publishes the numbers regularly, and a bank that sits at the top of the list for technical declines, as ICICI did in September, is likely to be asked about it.
The simulator below lets you try your own numbers. Start with the reported September values, then change the rate or the volume to see how many payments would fail. It is arithmetic on the reported rates, not a forecast.
What to watch next
The October figures are the obvious next test. If the technical decline rates at ICICI, SBI, Kotak and IOB fall back towards their August levels, September may turn out to have been a blip. If they stay near 0.3% to 0.7%, the story becomes one of a lasting problem. Watch also whether any of the banks gives an explanation, and whether NPCI comments on the rise. Finally, the report notes that total UPI transactions fell 1.8% in September, so it is worth watching whether volume recovers in October, a festive month in India.
Key takeaways
- The technical decline rate across the 20 largest UPI remitter banks rose to 0.24% in September from 0.18% in August, according to NPCI data reported by MediaNama on 2 November.
- ICICI Bank's rate jumped from 0.03% to 0.73%, SBI's from 0.10% to 0.38% and Kotak's from 0.02% to 0.36%.
- On the reported volumes, 0.24% of 23.47 billion transactions is roughly 56 million technical failures, against about 43 million in August by this site's arithmetic.
- The report gives no cause for the rise and no response from the banks, so it is unclear whether the jump will last.
Sources
- [MediaNama: UPI payment failures rise at top 20 banks in September](https://www.medianama.com/2026/11/223-upi-technical-decline-rate-rises-september-2026/)
Tags: UPI NPCI digital payments Banking Payment failures