RTGS To Be Available In India 24×7 From December 14

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to make available the RTGS (real-time gross settlement system) — online fund transfer above Rs 2 lakh — round the clock on all days from December 2020. With this, India will be among the few countries globally with a large value payment ecosystem.

“In order to facilitate swift and seamless payments in real-time for domestic businesses and institutions, it has been decided to make available the RTGS system round the clock on all days from December 2020,” the RBI said. “This will facilitate innovations in the large value payments ecosystem and promote ease of doing business,” the RBI said.

In December 2019, the RBI made available the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system round the clock on all days and the system has been operating smoothly since then, it said. The RTGS system is primarily meant for large value transactions. The minimum amount to be remitted through RTGS is Rs two lakh with no upper or maximum ceiling. Currently, RTGS service window for customer transactions is available to banks from 7 am to 6 pm on a working day, for settlement at the RBI end. However, the timings that the banks follow may vary from bank to bank, RBI said.

RTGS, which began its operations on March 26, 2004 with a soft launch involving four banks, presently handles 6.35 lakh transactions daily for a value of Rs 4.17 lakh crore across 237 participant banks. The average ticket size for RTGS in November 2020 was Rs 57.96 lakh making it a truly large value payment system.