RTGS Money Transfer Service To Be Operational 24×7 From December 14

According to RBI, the RTGS presently handles 6.35 lakh transactions on a daily basis.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday, December 9, announced that the Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) will be operational 24×7, all throughout the year starting from December 14, 2020. This comes within one year of operationalising the national electronics funds transfer (NEFT) 24×7 . “India will become one of the few countries in the world to operate its RTGS system round the clock throughout the year,” the RBI said in a statement today. The announcement comes days after RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had announced the change in the recent Monetary Policy Committee meeting.

The RTGS system is mostly meant for high-value transactions and happens on a real-time basis. The minimum amount to be remitted through the RTGS is ₹2 lakh with no maximum limit. In the transfer, the beneficiary bank receives the instruction to transfer funds immediately when one carries out the transaction, and the transfer is instantaneous.

According to RBI, the RTGS presently handles 6.35 lakh transactions on a daily basis for a value of ₹4.17 lakh crore across 237 participant banks. The average ticket size for the RTGS in November 2020 was ₹57.96 lakh making it a large value payment system. The feature of positive confirmation for the credit to beneficiary accounts is also available in the RTGS service.

The round the clock availability of RTGS will provide an extended flexibility to businesses for effecting payments and will enable the introduction of additional settlement cycles in ancillary payment systems. This can also be leveraged to enhance the operations of the financial markets as well as cross-border payments. The RTGS began its operations on March 26, 2004 with a soft launch involving four banks.