RBI boosts NPCI's bulk payment system for uninterrupted money transfers

The RBI has taken successive steps over many years to ensure that digital payment options are available every day, every hour. This is yet another step in that direction, Adhil Shetty, CEO, BankBazaar.com told CNBC-TV18.

“Thanks to the power of automated clearing, payment systems will work for everyone all year—even on weekends. During COVID times, it's also necessary for payments to be done digitally to lower contamination risks and therefore steps such as this help,” he said.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das earlier on Friday while announcing the bi-monthly monetary policy review said, "In order to further enhance customer convenience, and to leverage the 24x7 availability of real-time gross settlement (RTGS), NACH which is currently available on bank working days, is proposed to be made available on all days of the week effective from August 1, 2021."

NACH has emerged as a popular and prominent mode of direct benefit transfer (DBT) to a large number of beneficiaries. Currently, it is available only on bank working days.

Meanwhile, the RBI's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to maintain the status quo on key policy rates. The MPC voted unanimously to leave the repo rate unchanged at 4 percent. The MSF rate and bank rates also remain unchanged at 4.25 percent.

On the other hand, the transactions on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform for the month of May stood at Rs 4,90,638 crore, while the transaction volume count was 253 crore. This was against the transaction value of Rs 4,93,663 crore in the month of April, with a volume count of 264 crore, according to NPCI data.