MUMBAI: India will become one of the few countries in the world to offer the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) of funds transfer a round-the-clock service.

Coming into effect from December, this will facilitate innovations in the large value payments ecosystem and promote ease of doing business.

The RTGS facility is used to transfer large sums of money from one bank account to another. The minimum amount that can be remitted through RTGS is Rs 2 lakh, but there is no upper limit.

Until now, the RTGS service window for customer transactions was available to banks from 7 am to 6 pm on a working day for settlement at the RBI end. However, the timings that the banks follow vary from bank to bank.

The other non-cash options for settling payments like the National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT), Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Bharat Bill Payment Service (BBPS) are round-the-clock facilities to pay bills and buy goods and services.

Both RTGS and NEFT are maintained by the RBI. Interbank transfer enables electronic transfer of funds from the bank account of the remitter to the account of the beneficiary in any other branch.

Under the RTGS system, the beneficiary branch receives the funds in real time. Within two hours of receiving the funds transfer message, the amount is transferred to the beneficiary's account.

"In December 2019, the RBI made available the National Electronic Funds Transfer system on a 24x7x365 basis and the system has been operating smoothly since then. In order to facilitate swift and seamless payments in real time for domestic businesses and institutions, it has been decided to make available the RTGS system round the clock on all days from December 2020,"the Reserve Bank of India governor said.

With the RTGS now available round the clock, transactions under this system are expected to increase significantly. The daily transaction on the RTGS system was 5.34 lakh with a volume of Rs 3,32,749.82 crore on 8 October, the last available data from the RBI.

The central bank has been making efforts to promote digital payments by reducing the charges on electronic payment. The RBI waived the processing charges levied by it for RTGS transactions from 1 July 2019. For all inward transactions, there was no charge. For outward transaction of Rs 2 to 5 lakh, a charge of Rs 24.50 exclusive of tax is levied. Above Rs 5 lakh, a charge not exceeding Rs 49.50 is levied, exclusive of tax. There are 140,000 RTGS-enabled bank branches.