RTGS to remain unavailable for 14 hours from Saturday - know what options you have

A technical upgrade of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) real-time gross settlement (RTGS) is scheduled after the close of business on April 17, 2021. The Reserve Bank of India tweeted and informed the customers on Thursday.

The RTGS for high-value transactions will remain unavailable for 14 hours from midnight of Saturday due to a technical upgrade to further improve the disaster recovery time of the system, the RBI said in a statement.

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 money transfers.

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 16 April, the Reserve Bank of India said on Monday.

The Reserve Bank has also directed banks to inform their customers so that they can plan their payment operations accordingly.

The RTGS facility was made available round-the-clock on all days from 14 December, making India one of the few countries to operate the system 24x7.

The popular National Electronic Funds Transfer or NEFT for fund transfers of up to Rs 2 lakh will continue to be operational as usual during this period.