New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India has announced to keep RTGS operational 24 hours a day. From the month of December, bank account holders do not need to wait for bank approvals over open and close to transfer a large amount. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said that the RTGS system of fund transfer will be available round the clock from December. The minimum transfer amount under RTGS is 2 lakh rupees. Earlier, National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) facility was started by RBI for 24 hours from last year.
What is RTGS?
If you transact money then RTGS is the fastest way to do so, other than this money can also be transferred using NEFT, IMPS and many more. NEFT transactions charge customer nominal fee for transfer of the money as well as the transaction is not made in real time, it may take some time but in RTGS money is transferred in real time. RTGS is a fund transfer system through which one can easily send or receive money from one bank account to another. Money can be sent or received instantly through the RTGS system as compared to NEFT. Real Time means that as soon as you send money, its process starts immediately and Gross Settlement means settlement on One on One basis.
The amount of Rs 2 lakh or more is mainly transferred from RTGS. RBI which maintains RTGS extended the RTGS transfer timings to one and a half hours. Last year, it was decided to increase its timing from 4.30 pm to 6.00 pm. According to RBI website the timings are-
Starting at 8.00 pm
Customer transaction up to 18.00 pm
Inter-bank transactions till 19.45 pm
End 20.00 hrs.
Members of the RTGS payment system are members of the government-owned State Bank of India (SBI) to most commercial banks including private sector ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank.
RTGS charges based on time are as follows- Time Charges from 8 AM to 11 AM will be zero, 11 AM to 13 PM it will be 2 RS, from 13 PM to 18 PM it will be 5 Rs and 18 PM onwards10 rupees.