What is IMPS?

IMPS is Immediate Payment Service. NPCI runs it. NPCI is the National Payments Corporation of India, and it is regulated by the Reserve Bank. The credit is instant. It works after banking hours, and it works on a bank holiday. You can start it from a phone, from internet banking, or from an ATM, if your bank offers that channel.

NPCI’s product page puts the per-transaction cap at ₹5,00,000 for every channel except SMS and IVR. Those two channels have a lower ceiling. NPCI tells you to ask the bank for that figure, so this page does not invent one. A bank can also set a lower cap than ₹5,00,000 on its own app, even on the channels that NPCI allows up to that line. The cap is per transaction. It is not a promise that your daily limit is the same number.

You identify the other account in one of two ways. A mobile number plus the MMID, the mobile money identifier your bank issues, is the phone route. An account number plus the IFSC is the branch route. Read both. IMPS can show you a name before you confirm. Use that screen. A wrong account number is still your instruction if you approve it.

Charges and failed payments

IMPS charges are set by the bank. NPCI does not publish one price for customers. Check your bank’s schedule of charges before you treat a headline as the fee. This page does not quote a rupee range from a single bank’s PDF. RBI’s caps for NEFT and RTGS do not automatically apply to IMPS.

A failed IMPS has its own clock, in RBI’s circular of 20 September 2019. If your account is debited and the other account is not credited, the beneficiary bank should reverse the transfer by T+1. After that day, compensation is ₹100 a day. The bank credits it on its own. You do not have to send a claim first. NEFT and RTGS use a different compensation, tied to the repo rate, because their rulebooks are the RBI FAQs rather than this circular.

Complain to your bank with the reference number. If the bank does not resolve it, the Reserve Bank Integrated Ombudsman is the next step. The NEFT FAQ states a 30-day wait before that door. The later RTGS FAQ points to the 2026 scheme and the time that scheme allows. Use the path your bank’s complaint desk names, and keep the receipt.

When IMPS is the right pipe

Use IMPS when the payment is urgent and within ₹5,00,000. A small daily payment is usually easier on UPI, which sits on the IMPS rails but does not ask you to type an account number. A transfer of at least ₹2,00,000 that should settle one payment at a time is RTGS. Salary and a future-dated file are NEFT. The payments guide puts the four side by side. The FD calculator is for money that should stop moving and earn interest instead.