New Delhi: The Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) money transfer facility will now be operational 24×7 from 12.30 on Monday (December 14), RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das announced on Sunday.

“It has been decided “to make RTGS available round the clock on all days of the year with effect from 00:30 hours on December 14, 2020,” the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said.

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 operationalising NEFT 24×7 by the Reserve Bank,” the RBI earlier said in a statement.

The settlement system 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,” the statement said.

“Round the clock availability of RTGS will provide extended flexibility to businesses for effecting payments and will enable introduction of additional settlement cycles in ancillary payment systems.”

“This can also be leveraged to enhance operations of Indian financial markets and cross-border payments.”

Here is all you need to know about the RTGS mode of online money transfer:

  • RTGS is a safe and secure system for funds transfer with no amount cap.
  • The funds settlement takes place in the books of the Reserve Bank of India. So, the payments are final and irrevocable.
  • Until now, RTGS was not a 24×7 system. The RTGS service window for customer transactions was 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.
  • The RTGS system is primarily meant for large value transactions.
  • The minimum amount to be remitted through RTGS is Rs 2,00,000 with no upper or maximum ceiling.
  • NEFT is an electronic fund transfer system in which the transactions received up to a particular time are processed in batches.
  • However, in RTGS, the transactions are processed continuously on a transaction by transaction basis throughout the RTGS business hours.