RTGS services won't be available for 14 hours on April 18 due to a technical upgrade, says RBI

The Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) service will not be available for 14 hours on Sunday, April 18, 2021, due to a technical upgrade. RBI has said the service will not be available from midnight to 2 PM.

In its release, RBI said, "A technical upgrade of RTGS, targeted to enhance the resilience and to further improve the Disaster Recovery Time of the RTGS system, is scheduled after the close of business of April 17, 2021." It added, "Accordingly, RTGS service will not be available from 00:00 hrs to 14.00 hrs on Sunday, April 18, 2021. The NEFT system will continue to be operational as usual during this period."

The Central Bank said it will be done to enhance resilience and to further improve the Disaster Recovery Time of the RTGS system. RBI has asked banks to inform their customers to plan their payment operations accordingly. RTGS Members will continue to receive event update(s) through system broadcasts.

However, National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) services will continue to remain operational as usual during this period.

Last week, the central bank extended the NEFT and RTGS facilities to non-bank payment system operators. Till now, only banks were allowed to use RTGS and NEFT payments facilities. Now, Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) issuers, card networks, White label ATM operators and Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) platforms can use NEFT and RTGS modes.