NEFT Recorded 4.1 Crore Transactions, Highest Single-Day Volume, On Feb. 29

The number of transactions processed through the Reserve Bank of India's National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system hit its highest ever single-day volume of 4.1 crore on Feb. 29.

The RBI offers two modes of digital payments—NEFT and Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS)—which have been active round-the-clock since December 2019 and December 2020, respectively, the central bank said in a statement on Friday.

However, Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) are other modes of electronic payments facilitated by the National Payments Corporation of India for real-time fund transfers.

The NEFT system processes retail payments, and the RTGS system facilitates wholesale transactions. The RTGS system, which settles all inter-bank payments and customer transactions above Rs 2 lakh, hit a record high volume of 16.25 lakh transactions in a day on March 31, 2023, the RBI said.

Introduced in November 2005, the NEFT system enables the transfer of funds at half-hourly intervals without any minimum or maximum amount limits.

In the last decade, the value of transactions through the NEFT system grew by 670%, and those on the RTGS system by 104%. In terms of volume, NEFT transactions grew 700% and RTGS payments grew 200%.