What is RTGS?

RTGS is Real Time Gross Settlement. The Reserve Bank of India runs it. Each transfer is settled on its own, in RBI’s books, as it arrives. “Gross” means the payments are not added together and netted off against other payments. A completed RTGS credit is final. RBI describes RTGS as the large-value system. NEFT, by contrast, waits for the next half-hour batch.

The minimum is ₹2,00,000. There is no maximum set by RBI. A transfer below the floor is not an RTGS. It is a NEFT, an IMPS, or a UPI payment. RTGS has been available 24x7 since 14 December 2020, including holidays. It does not take an instruction dated for a future day. If you want the money to leave next Tuesday, that is a NEFT your bank can schedule, not an RTGS you park overnight.

The beneficiary bank should credit the account within 30 minutes of receiving RBI’s message. If it cannot credit the account, it should return the funds within 1 hour of receiving them, or before the RTGS business day ends, whichever is earlier. Those clocks are in the RTGS FAQ, which RBI updated on 14 October 2026. You need the account number and the IFSC. The system credits the number. A name that looks slightly different is not what the credit follows.

Charges

From 1 July 2019, RBI stopped charging banks for RTGS processing and asked them to pass that benefit on. The customer cap remains. Inward RTGS is free. Outward RTGS from ₹2,00,000 to ₹5,00,000 is not more than ₹25, exclusive of tax. Above ₹5,00,000 it is not more than ₹50, exclusive of tax. A bank may charge less. It may not charge more. This page does not say that online RTGS from a savings account is free. The current FAQ does not say that.

A late return is compensated at the repo rate plus 2 percentage points. The bank should credit that interest on its own. The repo rate itself is on RBI policy rates. Do not bake a combined percent into a note that will go stale the next time the rate moves.

Name look-up and complaints

RBI introduced a beneficiary name look-up for RTGS and NEFT in December 2024. Banks had to offer it on internet banking, in the mobile app, and at the branch by 1 April 2025. You enter the account number and the IFSC. The screen shows the name on that account. The RTGS FAQ says the look-up is free. If the name cannot be fetched, you may still send, and you carry that choice. Read both the name and the number.

Complain to your bank first. The RTGS FAQ points to the Reserve Bank Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, 2026, and to the time that scheme allows. File at the RBI complaints site named in the FAQ. The payments guide puts RTGS next to NEFT, IMPS and UPI, including the case for a large same-day payment. A balance you will not move sits better in a deposit. The FD calculator is that sum, after the transfer has a reason.