UPI services suffered widespread disruption across India on April 1, 2026. State Bank of India's annual financial year-end maintenance overran its scheduled 45-minute window. SBI had announced maintenance from 11:00 AM to 11:45 AM IST but extended the window to 12:30 PM. Over 500 user complaints were logged on Downdetector. Failed transactions were also reported at HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and UCO Bank.
The disruption coincided with the first day of the RBI's mandatory two-factor authentication framework for all digital payments. NPCI stated its core UPI switch remained functional and attributed the transaction failures to bottlenecks at individual bank servers.
SBI directed customers to UPI Lite and the eRupee CBDC app as alternatives during the outage. Failed transactions are expected to be automatically reversed within 48 to 72 hours under standard UPI dispute resolution rules. The incident was the latest in a series of UPI service interruptions since mid-March 2026.