Customers of HDFC Bank, the country’s largest private sector lender, should prepare for temporary disruptions in digital payments this week. The bank has announced a scheduled downtime for its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) services to facilitate necessary system maintenance.

According to the bank’s notification, UPI services will be unavailable for four hours on December 13. The disruption window is scheduled from 2:30 AM to 6:30 AM. During this period, customers will be unable to conduct financial and non-financial UPI transactions.

Scope of the Disruption

The service outage will impact a wide range of account holders. HDFC Bank Current and Savings accounts, as well as RuPay Credit Cards linked to UPI, will not support transactions during the maintenance window. Furthermore, the HDFC Mobile Banking App’s UPI features will be inaccessible.

This downtime also extends to merchants. HDFC Bank has indicated that merchant customers relying on the bank’s UPI ecosystem for settlements or payments will also face disruptions during these specific hours.

Reason for Maintenance

HDFC Bank stated that this step is necessary to perform scheduled maintenance aimed at improving the overall banking experience. These updates are designed to ensure faster, more secure, and reliable services for the bank’s massive customer base, which spans millions of users across over 9,000 branches and 20,000 ATMs.

Banks routinely undertake such maintenance activities to upgrade their technological infrastructure. HDFC Bank has issued a notification on its official website to ensure account holders are informed in advance.

Alternative Banking Channels Available

While UPI services will be paused, other banking channels remain operational. The bank has clarified that customers can still utilize ATMs for cash withdrawals. Additionally, credit card transactions (non-UPI), and fund transfer mechanisms like RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement), NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer), and IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) will function normally.

However, since December 13 falls on a Sunday, physical bank branches will remain closed as per standard banking holidays.

Second Downtime on December 21

Customers should note that this is not a one-time event for the month. A similar maintenance schedule is planned for December 21. On this date, UPI services will again be down for the same four-hour window, from 2:30 AM to 6:30 AM.

This follows recent maintenance activities earlier in the month. On December 10, scheduled maintenance temporarily impacted prepaid card services, including Forex card loading via net banking and instant reload services. Domestic ATM, POS, and e-commerce transactions on HDFC Bank terminals were also briefly affected during that period.

Customers are advised to plan their high-priority transactions before or after the designated downtime slots to avoid inconvenience.