RBI to speed up fund transfers

As part of efforts to speed up fund transfers, the RBI is working on a system to enable encashment of multi-city cheques within a day or two.

Days are not far when a person can transfer funds through the nearby bank ATMs also, a senior RBI official said.

RBI is also hopeful that the real time gross settlement (RTGS) facility is available in 500 major centres in the country by next fiscal from 215 centres now, RBI chief general manager R Gandhi said today.

"Our ultimate objective is to make fund transfer instantaneous. We are at a preliminary stage of developing a system whereby fund transfer can be possible through bank ATMs," he said.

It would take some time as commercial banks have to put in place the software for this purpose, he added.

Some of the banks already offers internet and tele banking, which enable faster transfer of funds from consumers to market participants.

But RBI is taking a slew of measures to facilitate fund transfers through other means.

"We will start a pilot project on cheque truncation on a T+1 or T+0 basis in Delhi, whereby banks can encash inter-city cheques in a day or two from the transaction date," Gandhi said, adding this project would be carried out with all banks.