Starting November 3, 2025, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) will roll out new settlement rules for UPI transactions. This update is aimed at improving the handling of growing transaction volumes and ensuring smoother, faster settlements.
How UPI Settlements Work Today
Currently, UPI transactions are cleared through 10 daily RTGS settlement cycles. These include both successful payments and disputed ones. In other words, each cycle processes not just authorized transactions but also those that are under dispute, such as failed or challenged payments.
What’s Changing in November
With the new guidelines, NPCI is separating dispute cases from regular settlements for better efficiency:
- Authorized transactions only: From cycle 1 to cycle 10, only successful and authorized payments will be processed. Disputed transactions will not be part of these cycles anymore.
- Dedicated settlement cycles for disputes: Two new cycles—cycle 11 and cycle 12—are being introduced. These will exclusively handle disputed transactions twice a day.
- New dispute identifiers: NPCI will add unique identifiers, DC1 and DC2 (Dispute Cycle), in the file naming system to clearly mark dispute transaction settlements.
It’s important to note that no other timings are being altered. Cut-over timings, RTGS posting schedules, reconciliation reports, and GST reports will continue as they are. The only adjustment lies in separating authorized and disputed transactions into different settlement cycles.
Update on Paytm UPI Autopay
In addition to this shift, NPCI has also announced an extension for users with old @paytm UPI ID Autopay mandates. The deadline to move away from these mandates, which was set earlier, has now been extended to October 31, 2025.
