RTGS to be available 24x7 from December 14, says RBI

Just within a year of operationalising NEFT 24x7, the Reserve Bank has announced that the Real Time Gross Settlement System or the RTGS facility will now be available for round the clock transactions. Accordingly, RTGS 24x7x365 will be launched with effect from 12:30 am on Monday, December 14, 2020.

With this, India will become one of the few countries in the world to operate its RTGS system round the clock throughout the year.

In a statement, RBI has informed that round the clock availability of RTGS will provide extended flexibility to businesses for effecting payments and will enable the introduction of additional settlement cycles in ancillary payment systems. It added that the system can also be leveraged to enhance operations of Indian financial markets and cross-border payments.

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.

RBI has informed that RTGS uses ISO 20022 format which is the best-in-class messaging standard for financial transactions. The feature of positive confirmation for credit to beneficiary accounts is also available in RTGS.