RTGS Goes Down: Is Your Big Transfer Safe?

When a public sector bank's RTGS system faces a tech glitch, large money transfers above ₹2 lakh can get delayed or stuck. Here's what you need to know to protect your transfers and what to do if your payment doesn't arrive.

Here's what happened: Central Bank of India's RTGS service experienced a temporary technical disruption, briefly halting real-time large-value transfers before being restored.. RTGS is the RBI-operated system for settling transfers of ₹2 lakh and above in real time; any outage directly affects individuals and businesses making high-value payments.. The bank confirmed no permanent customer impact, but such incidents highlight how dependent large financial transactions are on fragile real-time banking infrastructure..

What you should do: Save your RTGS UTR (Unique Transaction Reference) number immediately after initiating any large transfer — it is your only proof if the payment stalls.. Switch to IMPS for urgent transfers under ₹5 lakh during any reported bank system outage — IMPS operates on a separate network and is usually unaffected.. If your RTGS funds don't arrive within the same business day, call your bank and formally request a reversal with interest — RBI mandates compensation for failed RTGS settlements..

Under RBI's payment settlement rules, if your RTGS transfer fails due to a bank system error, you are entitled to interest at the RBI's LAF repo rate from the failed settlement time until the funds are returned — log a written complaint to trigger this.