mumbai, Aug. 14 -- Come September 1, and thousands of autopay transactions for insurance premiums and Netflix subscriptions may fail, as a hard deadline to discontinue the @paytm handle for UPI payments kicks in. As part of a series of measures against Paytm Payments Bank last year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) curbed the use of the @paytm UPI handle. Following this, the National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI) mandated migrating these handles to other banks. However, multiple old handles remain tied to autopay mandates, putting these planned transactions at risk once the deadline is crossed, two people familiar with the matter said. "Users will have to first cancel the existing mandate linked to the @paytm handle and then create a fresh one with their new handles. There has to be a greater push for users to do that," said an insurance industry executive said on the condition of anonymity. Despite repeated reminders, many customers have not migrated yet, the executive added. Emails sent to the Reserve Bank of India, NPCI and Paytm remained unanswered. On 31 January 2024, RBI barred any addition of funds to Paytm Payments Bank accounts, wallets and Fastags. In February 2024, RBI said that @paytm UPI handles should be migrated to a different clutch of banks and that the payments bank will not be allowed to undertake any transactions post 15 March. On 17 April, Paytm said it is transitioning these handles to Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, SBI and Yes Bank. The people cited earlier said that the transition was quick for everything else other than autopay mandates. While autopay failure can affect recurring payments in any industry, the impact can be worse in insurance-Missing a premium payment can send your policy into a grace period, after which the policy can lapse, depriving the customer of its benefits and coverage. Industry executives said that at least Rs.1,400 crore worth of annual insurance premium autopay mandates are still tied to old Paytm handles. Autopay allows users to set up recurring UPI payments to various merchants. The industry has taken up the matter with retail payment umbrella body NPCI, but there has been no solution so far, they said. "August 31, 2025 is the final deadline for servicing UPI autopay mandates on @paytm handles. The decision has already undergone two extensions, and further continuance beyond this deadline is not envisaged," according to an NPCI communication seen by Mint. "We request all concerned merchants to urgently engage with Paytm to migrate active mandates and avoid disruption to customer services." The executive cited above added that just for insurance, there are nearly 500,000 @Paytm UPI autopay mandates with an insurance aggregator which would fail after 31 August. These are primarily linked to life insurance premium payments, he said....