RTGS services unavailable till 2pm today: All you need to know

RBI has asked its member banks to notify their customers regarding the service unavailability so that they can plan their transactions accordingly.

The Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) service will be unavailable for 14 hours on Sunday due to a technical upgrade, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) notice issued earlier this week. However, people can use the National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) service for any transaction which will continue to remain operational as RTGS won't be available between 12am and 2pm on Sunday.

RBI has asked its member banks to notify their customers regarding the service unavailability so that they can plan their transactions accordingly. (Mint Archives)

"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," the central bank said on Monday.

RBI has asked its member banks to notify their customers regarding the service unavailability so that they can plan their transactions accordingly. "Member banks may inform their customers to plan their payment operations accordingly. RTGS Members will continue to receive event update(s) through system broadcasts,” it said in the statement.

Last week, the central bank proposed to expand RTGS and NEFT facilities to non-bank payment system firms in a phased manner. The objective of the move is to encourage the participation of non-banks across payment systems.

Under RTGS, there is the continuous and real-time settlement of fund transfers individually on a transaction-by-transaction basis without netting. The medium is a safer and secure system for funds transfer without any upper or maximum ceiling. It was made available 24x7 from December 14 last year. India is one of the few countries where the service works on all days.