RTGS services won’t be available for 14 hours on April 18

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Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), an instant payment system, will remain unserviceable for 14 hours on April 18, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on April 12.

“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 in a notification.

RTGS service, which is associated with large value fund transfers, will be inaccessible from 00:00 hours to 14:00 hours on April 18. However, the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) service, which is popular for small value transactions, will remain operational as usual during this period.

“Member banks may inform their customers to plan their payment operations accordingly and RTGS Members will continue to receive event update(s) through system broadcasts,” RBI said.

Until now, RTGS and NEFT services were limited to banks. But the RBI has now proposed non-banks like PPIs (prepaid payment instruments) to be included within the Centralised Payment Systems.

“This facility is expected to minimise settlement risk in the financial system and enhance the reach of digital financial services to all user segments,” it said.