Payment Gateway Questions & Answers

• Draft realistic meeting invites with benign-looking QR codes that point to a safe, monitored landing page (no real risk).
• Run the drill in scoped cohorts, log clicks/scans, and capture telemetry (who scanned, device, time, IP) for follow-up coaching.
• After the exercise, send tailored training to participants who scanned the QR (explain red flags: unexpected invites, mismatched domains, request for credentials).
• Report org-wide metrics (scan rate, repeat offenders, time-to-report) and repeat quarterly, adjusting difficulty and controls (link/QR scanning, MFA) as needed."

• Pre-check UPI cap: Before payment initiation, verify each SIP installment against the investor’s per-transaction UPI limit using the PSP or NPCI cap API.
• Auto-split logic: If the amount exceeds the cap, divide it into smaller tranches (e.g., INR 95,000 each) under the same SIP mandate ID.
• Sequential processing: Trigger the next UPI request only after confirmation of the previous one to prevent duplication.
• Unified reconciliation: Link all split RRNs under one SIP reference for settlement and audit tracking.

Integrate the ERP finance module with the PSP/NPCI UPI limit-eligibility API and tag each payment as EVENT_TICKETING before the check.

If the API returns higher-limit support for the customer’s bank, show a banner like Your bank supports higher UPI limits for ticket purchases,  up to ₹X available.

Cache eligibility results per bank for a few hours and fall back to standard-limit messaging when no enhanced limit is returned.

Maintain a category→limit table for UTILITY_PAYMENTS (per-txn + daily caps) and tag each payment with that category before intent creation.

Pre-validate: reject or auto-split if amount > perTxnLimit and check (today_inflow_for_category + amount) ≤ dailyAggregateLimit per VPA/merchant.

Call PSP/NPCI eligibility APIs for bank-specific overrides when available, then record RRNs and update daily counters after settlement for audit and reconciliation.

Your mobile app checkout should:

• Detect per-bank and per-category UPI limits dynamically.
• Auto-split payments into smaller tranches above the cap.
• Process tranches sequentially with clear user feedback.
• Link all payments under one booking reference for reconciliation.
• Handle mid-way failures gracefully with retry or fallback options.
• Support backend posting for split settlements.

By adding these workflows, your app ensures large UPI-based travel bookings go through seamlessly, without users hitting caps or abandoning checkout midway.

First, keep an eye on your payment gateway's or PSP's typical UPI API response time in real time. Since the majority of billing engines currently record transaction latency, use this data to establish a dynamic threshold. For example, slowing mode should be activated if the average response time for more than 10% of active requests is greater than 2 seconds. Your billing engine should lower the amount of concurrent UPI calls during this slowness mode by modifying the internal rate limiters or message queue dispatch interval, basically, stopping queue workers for a short while.

Retry throttling should then be incorporated into your payment process. Use exponential backoff, so each subsequent retry waits longer than the previous one. For instance, five, fifteen, and forty-five seconds—instead of retrying every unsuccessful UPI payment right away. To avoid synchronized spikes caused by numerous people trying at once, add jitter, a random delay. This guarantees that whether the PSP or the UPI network is under very high strain, your system stays stable.

Another option is to set up a circuit breaker rule, which will automatically stop new UPI payment attempts for a short while (say, two to five minutes) if a predetermined number of consecutive UPI failures occur (for example, five or more within thirty seconds). Show a message like ""UPI is currently responding slowly, please try again or use another method"" and direct consumers to other payment alternatives (such cards or netbanking) during that outage.

Lastly, record any throttling incidents and reaction times in your dashboard. To visualize latency trends and notify your operations team when the billing engine enters slowness mode, you can incorporate tools like Datadog, Grafana, or New Relic.

When reconciliation software handles education fee payments via UPI, it should be smart enough to catch when a transaction bumps into the UPI cap limit mid-checkout, which is often ₹1 lakh per transaction (though some banks allow up to ₹5 lakh for education-related payments). Instead of letting the transaction fail and frustrate the user, the software should automatically recommend fallback payment methods that help complete the payment seamlessly.

The first and most reliable fallback is NetBanking (IMPS/NEFT/RTGS). Since education fee payments are usually large and time-sensitive, NetBanking provides a stable, high-limit option without the per-transaction cap issue UPI has. The software can automatically detect the limit exceeded error and show a message like, Your bank’s UPI limit has been reached and continue with NetBanking for faster processing. This kind of smart redirect keeps users in the flow instead of forcing them to restart the payment.

The second fallback should be debit or credit cards. Many PSPs and banks support large one-time transactions on cards, and some institutions even offer education-specific card payment gateways with EMI options. Your reconciliation system should integrate with these gateways and automatically switch the user to the card payment screen when UPI fails due to cap limits.

A third option is to enable split UPI payments, where the reconciliation software intelligently divides a large amount into multiple UPI transactions under a single invoice ID. For example, a ₹2 lakh fee payment could be automatically split into two ₹1 lakh UPI transactions, each linked to the same student reference. This keeps the process compliant while ensuring the total fee is received.

You could also offer payment links or QR codes as a fallback. When a UPI transaction fails mid-checkout, the system can generate a secondary link for the remaining balance, allowing parents to complete payment later via NetBanking or card without losing the transaction reference.

Finally, your reconciliation software should communicate clearly. A short message like, UPI transaction limit reached, try NetBanking or card for higher limits can prevent confusion and reduce payment drop-offs.

This can be achieved by setting a threshold for the response time at your UPI integration layer. Typically, UPI payment APIs respond within 2-3 seconds.

Now, set a threshold-say, 5 seconds-where if more than a certain percentage, say 10%, of API calls exceed that time, your system automatically switches into throttle mode. During throttle mode, it reduces how frequently the software retries failed confirmations or pending status checks. For instance, instead of retrying every 5 seconds, it switches to 15 or 30 seconds between retries.

Next, use exponential backoff for retries. This is to say that each retry waits successively longer than the last, 5 seconds, then 10, then 20, etc. It's a simple but effective strategy to prevent your system from hammering the UPI gateway when it's already under load. Most of the payment SDKs or webhook processors support configurable backoff parameters.

You should also implement smart retry categorization. Not every failure deserves a retry. For example, if UPI API returned errors like invalid VPA, account blocked, or limit exceeded, those should be marked as hard fails - no retry needed. But if the error is related to timeout or network unavailable, those should go into your retry queue and get throttled gradually.

Adding a circuit breaker is another smart move. In the case of more than 20% of all the UPI requests failing within a five-minute window, your billing software should automatically pause retries for a few minutes. This prevents cascading failures and gives the PSP time to recover.

You can also configure queue prioritization. For instance, prioritize retries for smaller ticket bookings or in-transit travel payments and defer large package payments temporarily. This way, the smaller transactions would keep flowing smoothly even when the UPI network becomes slow.

Last but not least, allow real-time notifications when throttling kicks in for your finance or devops team. A simple Slack or email notification like UPI retry throttling triggered due to high latency (avg: 6.2s) helps your team monitor performance and coordinate with your payment provider.

In short, finance teams should enable:

• Daily usage alerts (for total UPI volume and value)
• High-value transaction alerts
• Failure rate alerts (for monitoring UPI reliability)
• Bank-wise limit alerts
• Settlement variance alerts

Together, these alerts give your team a live view of UPI activity and ensure every travel booking payment, especially the big-ticket ones, flows through cleanly, reconciles correctly, and avoids compliance headaches.

Create a sandbox or staging environment with mock UPI transactions across three tiers: low-value, below ₹1 lakh; mid-value, ₹1–2 lakh; and high-value, above ₹2 lakh for eligible accounts. This will help you replicate the new limit tiers defined under the updated NPCI guidelines for travel. In each of these scenarios, verify if your gateway identifies the transaction appropriately as standard or high-value and applies the correct settlement and ledger posting logic.

Next, simulate a partial refund, say ₹20,000 on a booking of ₹1.2 lakh and full refund (the entire amount reversed). In both cases, check whether your gateway sends a Refund API call to the PSP with the correct original UPI reference ID (RRN) and whether the PSP processes it under the same UPI channel. Refunds for high-value UPI transactions post-September 2025 may not process in real time but usually go through a delayed credit window (T+1). Your system should be able to handle asynchronous refund confirmations and post interim entries like Refund Initiated – Pending Credit.

For chargebacks, use your PSP's dispute management sandbox to mock disputed transactions. For instance, test such scenarios as payment credited but booking is cancelled or duplicate charge. Verify your integration appropriately fetches dispute notifications via webhook or scheduled poll, it locks the corresponding ledger entry and posts a temporary reversal to a Chargeback – Under Review account. This avoids double reversals in case the customer’s refund later succeeds.

Also, check your UPI cap compliance logic on refunds. If the original transaction was over the base ₹1 lakh limit for the travel category (and was therefore processed via a high-value corridor), then your gateway should use that exact same high-value corridor in case of refunds - and not the standard corridor. Failure to do so will result in the PSP rejecting the refund or delayed settlement.

Finally, test your reporting and reconciliation layer. Chargebacks and refunds should appear as separate transaction types with an initial UPI reference, refund ID, and settlement date on your ERP or finance dashboard. Run daily reconciliation scripts to make that chargeback reversals pass through your ledger with no residual balances and that reimbursed amounts are appropriately subtracted from your merchant settlement reports.