Every month, more than 20 million UPI AutoPay mandates get cancelled because customers don’t have enough balance in their bank accounts, according to industry sources.
For context, UPI AutoPay is a feature within the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system that allows people to set up recurring payments through any UPI-enabled app. For example, a user can set up an automatic payment for their OTT subscription, utility bills, insurance premiums, or loan installments. Once the mandate is created, the money gets deducted automatically from the customer’s bank account on the scheduled date, without the need for manual approval each time.
When a customer sets up AutoPay, two key steps are involved:
Mandate Registration – This is when the customer authorizes the bank to allow recurring deductions.
Mandate Execution – This is the actual transaction, where the payment gets deducted from the account as per the schedule.
The problem arises mostly during the execution stage. If the account balance is lower than the required amount, the transaction fails, and in many cases, the mandate itself gets cancelled or revoked. Industry data shows that this is happening on a very large scale, with over 20 million mandates being revoked every month.
These cancellations are mainly happening in recurring payment use cases such as subscription services, EMI payments, insurance renewals, and utility bill payments. For customers, this often leads to disruption in services—like a streaming subscription getting paused—or even penalties in the case of missed EMI payments.
The trend highlights a few important issues in India’s digital payments ecosystem. First, while UPI has made everyday transactions extremely simple and widespread, recurring payments depend heavily on consistent account balances. Second, a large number of users may be overcommitting by setting up too many mandates without ensuring sufficient funds. Finally, the revocations show that while AutoPay is a convenient feature, its success depends on better financial planning and awareness among users.
Going forward, payment experts believe that improving financial literacy and offering reminders or alerts before AutoPay deductions may help reduce such cancellations. Banks and payment apps may also work on giving customers more flexibility, such as retry options, instead of outright revocation when a payment fails.
