Upi Autopay’s repetitive misery forcing an industry reconsider

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Salman SH 5 min Read 10 Oct 2025, 11:25 am Ist Upi Autopay has helped accelerate digital adoption across India, with subscriptions getting stuck on video and audio stream, game, health and fitness and consumer software platforms. (AI-generated image) Summary enterprises and consumers lose patience with UPI Autopay, as failure rates of up to 90% cause involuntary subscription cancellations, forcing startups and platforms to reconsider their reliance on IT for subscription growth. India’s subscription economy is creeping back to maps for recurring payments, as businesses and clients get tired of UPI’s auto function function that achieves the failure of up to 90%. August data from the National Payments Corporation of India, which manages the uniform payment level for real-time bank transfers, indicates that 55-90% of automatic payments in public and private banks on Upi Autopay did not go through during the month. The high failure rate was largely due to factors such as insufficient balances in bank accounts and incorrect beneficiary details, according to NPCI data. But according to industry experts, it has caused involuntary cancellations of subscriptions, increasing the startups relying on recurring payments. Managers at software companies and video -streaming platforms Mint said they are now also focusing on debit and credit cards and just banks to facilitate repetitive payments. But in this, a problem-upi lies the standard choice in small towns because of the ease of use, and in pricing segments such as video streaming, social media and software subscriptions. State Bank of India, which handled nearly 2.13 billion UPI Outopay transactions in August, only went through the NPCI data. Airtel Payments Bank has processed 568.9 million UPI Autopay transactions, but only 10.49% has been approved. Among the major banks, ICICI Bank Ltd reported the highest approval rate for August – about 52%. Chinmaya Desai, co-founder and chief enterprise officer at Falcon FS, a banking technology platform, said recurring payments on maps and netbanks usually fail for predictable reasons such as insufficient balance or maximum card limits. It is usually not dependent on devices, mobile networks or various intermediaries. “With UPI Autopay, you also depend on the device, the network and the UPI track itself more moving parts, which means more ways to fail,” he said. NPCI classifies UPI -Outopay failures caused by issues such as insufficient bank account balance or invalid PIN details as ‘business decline’, and those caused by system or network problems as ‘technical declines’. User behavior also adds friction due to regular conversion of primary UPI programs or handles to chase different payment offers and discounts, which can disrupt the mandates for repetitive payments and trigger errors, Desai added. Important takeaways UPI Autopay’s high failure rates – ranging from 55% to 90% over banks – cause widespread disruption in recurring payments, leading to cancellations of the enrollment and customers. Businesses return to maps and netbanks for recurring invoice, and appreciate their relative reliability and predictability of UPI’s comfort. Upi Autopay still dominates clay ticket, mass market use in small towns and low-cost segments, but this is a major challenge due to its multiple technical dependencies. A forced reconsideration of NPCI launched UPI Autopay in 2020 to enable users to set up e -mandates for repetitive payments for utility account, subscriptions and investments in mutual fund. It was named a card -free way to draw up to small ticket subscriptions, and became more popular to the Reserve Bank of India in October 2021, which was tightened on the map -based recurring payments by additional verification, notifications before the debt and easy cancellation of subscriptions. In addition, credit and debit cards are not as easily accessible as UPI, which works even on ordinary features. According to a telephone note record that the research firm calls Statista, UPI Autopay has contributed to accelerating digital acceptance, with subscriptions that get a traction over video and audio stream, play, health and fitness and consumer software platforms. But the high rejection rates are forcing an industry reconsider. A failure rate of more than 5% makes businesses that depend on subscriptions, because it increases the costs to ‘recycle’ a customer, add workload for support and billing teams and lead to direct income loss due to involuntary chewing. The founder of a short-drama streaming app said the platform allows a week’s grace period for the renewal of the subscription. ‘If it still fails, the subscription is canceled and the user must be authorized again [the recurring payment]. But it creates a lot of friction. So we just assume that the user voluntarily terminated the subscription after this period, “the founder said, and he refused to be identified because he did not want to be considered critical as NPCI. Phalgun Guduthur, founder of the email management suite Simplehuman, is to evaluate UPI next to credit and debt cards for the on board indian customers. Charges, “he said, adding that he did not historically consider UPI reliable for subscriptions. “That said, many customer segments prefer UPI, especially for monthly rather than annual plans.” UPI’s mass factor online subscriptions in India tend to be two types, Dharmesh BA, an independent user experience consultant working with consumer internet apps, and you have a consumer apps, uddaan, plum insurance and jar. Investment platforms such as Groww or Jar Position Recurring Payments as a Service of Day One, Entertainment and Streaming Apps offer a £ 1 trial for customers to set up an auto-pay mandate. “In the case of investment programs, users recognize the value they pay for the release of users from the Free -Trial … have the option to cancel the auto purchase as they please, and therefore many users fall off to the trial … This is something that can correct consumers’ internet programs. In January, UPI Autopay Transactions rose about 175 million from about 58 million a year earlier. Autopay to their clients rose from 550 a year in January to 647. and digital wallets.