On Monday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a notification and said the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) facility will be available for 14 hours on Sunday, May 23.
The notification read as, "A technical upgrade of NEFT, targeted to enhance the performance and resilience, is scheduled after the close of business of May 22, 2021."
"Accordingly, NEFT service will not be available from 00:01 hrs to 14:00 hrs on Sunday, May 23, 2021," it further added.
The RBI also said, "Member banks may inform their customers to plan their payment operations accordingly. NEFT Members will continue to receive event update(s) through NEFT system broadcasts."
The RBI notification, however, said that the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) facility will operate as usual during this period. For the unversed, a similar RTGS was completed by the RBI on April 18.
It was in April 2021 that NEFT and RTGS facilities were extended by the RBI to non-bank payment system operators. It resulted in NEFT and RTGS modes being used by Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) issuers, card networks, White label ATM operators, and Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) platforms.
According to the RBI, this step was taken to boost the cooperation of non-banks across payment systems.
In a statement, the bank regulator said, "This facility is expected to minimise settlement risk in the financial system and enhance the reach of digital financial services to all user segments. These entities will, however, not be eligible for any liquidity facility from the Reserve Bank to facilitate settlement of their transactions in these CPSs. Necessary instructions will be issued separately."
