The government of India (GOI) has defined new RTGS rules for banking customers who largely rely on internet banking for a large sum of transactions.
For the last few years, GOI is constantly working towards the direction of the digital economy by pushing the adoption of digital payments. The new RTGS rule is another step to make more people rely more on RTGS than the conventional method of payment through cheques.
From December 01, 2020, all the internet banking customers can make use of RTGS round the clock and all the seven days of a week.
RTGS is meant for large sum transfer, any amount over Rs 2 lakh. Until now, RTGS facility was available for customers from morning 7AM to 6PM on working days only.
RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement) is a facility that is used by internet banking customers who want to transfer a large sum of money for immediate credit in the beneficiary account in full.
The exploded adoption of smartphone and high-speed mobile internet is resulting in deep penetration of mobile banking in India. There are over 650 million internet users in India and a sizeable share of those makes use of internet banking nowadays.
While the number of NEFT surged to a new record high in the last few years, users are still hesitant to do a RTGS transaction due to the large sum involved. In August 2020, 1.16 crore RTGS transactions, amounting to Rs. 7,292,380 crore, were recorded. The growth in the number of RTGS transactions were little disappiinting as compared to NEFT transactions.
With the availability of round-the-clock RTGS transfer facility, the Indian government is expecting to win the confidence of traditional business owners who are still relying on cheques and cash mode of transactions.
“To support the ongoing efforts aimed at global integration of Indian financial markets, facilitate India’s efforts to develop international financial centres and to provide wider payment flexibility to domestic corporate and institutions, it has been decided to make RTGS available round-the-clock on all days”, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said.
India is now among the very few countries that have such a financial openness and allows large sum of transaction 24x7x365.
Last year RBI stopped levying any charges on on NEFT and RTGS in a bid to promote digital transactions in India.
How the new timing of RTGS transaction will help the government’s objective is something that only time will tell. The RTGS transaction number of the next few months will paint a clear picture. Until then we need to wait and watch.
What’s your views on the new RTGS rule? do you think that’s lucrative enough to win the confidence of traditional business owners or the government needs to do a lot more? Do let us know your views in the comment section below.
