UPI Architecture: The Story of How NPCI Became India's L7 Super Switch
The article explains how NPCI's UPI system functions as a high-scale, real-time payment switch without storing user data. It operates like an L7 load balancer, validating and routing transactions while leaving balance checks and KYC to banks. The architecture enables fast, secure transactions across hundreds of millions of users in under two seconds.
- ▪NPCI does not store user account numbers, balances, PINs, or personal information during UPI transactions.
- ▪The UPI switch performs validation, routing, signature verification, and logging at the application layer, similar to an L7 load balancer.
- ▪Transaction processing involves coordination between the user's app, payment service providers, NPCI, and banks, with end-to-end completion in about two seconds.
- ▪NPCI logs metadata such as transaction IDs, timestamps, and routing decisions for compliance but does not retain personally identifiable information.
- ▪The system handles over 100,000 requests per second at peak and supports more than 800 million users with a stateless, distributed architecture.
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try { if(localStorage) { let currentUser = localStorage.getItem('current_user'); if (currentUser) { currentUser = JSON.parse(currentUser); if (currentUser.id === 1025208) { document.getElementById('article-show-container').classList.add('current-user-is-article-author'); } } } } catch (e) { console.error(e); } HarshKumar Jha Posted on May 2 • Originally published at jhaharsh878.Medium UPI Architecture: The Story of How NPCI Became India's L7 Super Switch #architecture #software #developer #distributedsystems The midnight momos It's 12:08 AM in Pune. A student walks up to a momo cart, scans a QR code, taps Pay, and walks away with his food. He doesn't know it. The shopkeeper doesn't know it. Honestly, most developers don't know it either.
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