NPCI to Ban UPI Money Request Feature from Oct 1 to Curb Rising Frauds
Starting October 1, 2025, you will no longer be able to request money from friends or family via UPI. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has decided to completely discontinue the peer-to-peer (P2P) collect request feature to curb the growing menace of cyber fraud.
The move comes at a time when UPI usage in India is at an all-time high. In July 2025 alone, the platform processed 19.4 billion transactions, including 7 billion P2P transfers.
What Exactly is a P2P Collect Request?
A P2P collect request, also known as a pull transaction, allows one UPI user to send a payment request to another. Once the request is received, the payer can approve it by entering their UPI PIN.
Why the Ban?
Fraudsters have been exploiting this feature to trick people into sending money. By sending unsolicited requests, they often managed to make unsuspecting users approve payments by mistake. With such scams on the rise, NPCI believes removing the feature is the most effective solution.
Who Will This Affect?
The ban applies only to person-to-person requests. Businesses like Flipkart, Amazon, Swiggy, and IRCTC can still use collect requests for genuine transactions — but only if the customer authorizes them.
The Deadline
NPCI has directed all banks and UPI app providers to stop initiating, routing, or processing P2P collect requests by October 1, 2025.
Other UPI Features Unchanged
This change won’t affect push payments such as scanning a QR code, entering a UPI ID, or using any other existing payment method. All other UPI functionalities will continue to operate as usual.
Current Limitations of the Feature
At present, P2P collect requests allow up to ₹2,000 per transaction, with a daily limit of 50 successful credit transactions.
A History of Fraud
In UPI’s early years, fraud via collect requests was rampant. While introducing a ₹2,000 cap reduced cases, the steady increase in cybercrime has now pushed NPCI to remove the feature entirely.
Impact on Users
The feature was handy for small personal transactions — borrowing lunch money from a friend, or splitting bills after a group outing. Now, users will have to rely on alternatives like UPI’s split payment option, which offers a safer way to share costs.
Effect on Small Businesses
Shopkeepers who used personal accounts to send payment requests will need to shift to merchant accounts, which follow separate transaction rules.
The Scale of UPI
UPI is by far India’s leading digital payment system, handling around 20 billion transactions a month worth roughly ₹25 lakh crore, and serving over 400 million users nationwide.
Fraud on the Rise
RBI data shows that in FY25, India recorded 29,000 cases of fraud involving payment cards and internet banking, causing losses of ₹1,457 crore. This is double the previous year’s losses of ₹520 crore from 13,516 cases.
July 2025 in Numbers
In July this year, UPI processed 19.4 billion transactions, of which 7 billion were P2P transfers — up from July 2024’s 14 billion transactions and 5 billion P2P payments.
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