The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has notified that the RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement) service used to send more than Rs 2 lakh will not be available for 14 hours from midnight on Saturday. The central bank said that technical upgrades are being done to further improve the disaster recovery time of the RTGS system, hence the service will be stopped for 14 hours.
“As a technical upgrade of RBI’s #RTGS is scheduled after the close of business of April 17, 2021, #RTGS service will not be available from 00:00 hrs to 14.00 hrs on Sunday, April 18, 2021. #NEFT system will continue to be operational as usual during this period for #moneytransfers,” the RBI tweeted on Thursday.
The RBI has also instructed banks to notify their customers so that they can plan their payment procedures appropriately. In the meantime, users can use the NEFT service to send their funds during this period.
For the unversed, both RTGS and NEFT are digital payment modes granted by the bank to send money in a snap. While RTGS transactions deal with only large amounts of money such as above Rs 2 lakh, NEFT is suggested when you have to transfer less than Rs 2 lakh.