The Reserve Bank of India on Sunday announced that Real Time Gross Settlement System, a facility to transfer large sums of money, will become operational on a 24-hour basis, from 12.30 am on Monday.
“RTGS facility becomes operational 24x7 from 12.30 am tonight. Congratulations to the teams from RBI, IFTAS and the service partners who made this possible,” Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das tweeted on Sunday.
The RTGS system is meant for high-value transactions, on a real-time basis. The minimum amount that can be transferred is Rs 2 lakh, while there is no upper limit for the transactions. Till now, the facility was available for use on all working days of the week except the second and fourth Saturdays, between 7 am and 6 pm.
For transactions under Rs 2 lakh, the National Electronics Funds Transfer, or NEFT method is used, which was already available for use round the clock.
On December 9, the central bank, in a release had notified the date for making RTGS available 24x7, within a year of a similar provision for NEFT. “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 RBI had said in its release.
The central bank said that the facility will provide extended flexibility to businesses for effecting payments and will be useful in enhancing operations of Indian financial markets and cross-border payments.
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