Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das on Sunday said that the 24X7 Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) facility would become operational 24X7 from 12:30 am tonight.
In a bid to give a push to digital payments, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had earlier announced that the RTGS used for large value transactions will be available round the clock on all days of the year from December 14, 2020.
The announcement first made in October said that India will become one of the few countries in the world to operate its RTGS system round-the-clock throughout the year.
This comes within a year of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) operationalising NEFT 24x7. NEFT is the popular mode for small-value transactions.
The RTGS facility is used to make large money transfers from one bank account to another. As per the RBI's FAQs, the minimum amount that can be remitted through RTGS is Rs 2 lakh with no upper or maximum ceiling. However, banks usually have an upper ceiling of Rs 10 lakh.
Currently, the RTGS transaction facility is available for customers from 7.00 am to 6.00 pm on all working days of a week, except the second and fourth Saturdays of every month.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had earlier said that with the 24X7 RTGS system, "it is proposed to reduce settlement and default risk in the system by facilitating settlement of AePS, IMPS, NETC, NFS, RuPay, UPI transactions on all days of the week instead of five days earlier. This will make the payments ecosystem more efficient."
RTGS, which started 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.
(With inputs from PTI)
