NPCI to cover all 56 RRBs under Immediate Payment Service by March 2016

Two of Canara Bank's regional rural banks have joined IMPS to take total number of RRBs offering the service to five

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has geared up to launch Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), an interbank remittance processing service, across all the 56 regional rural banks (RRBs) by March 2016. The NPCI has till now facilitated only five RRBs to launch IMPS.

This service offers instant, 24x7, interbank electronic fund transfer through mobile, internet and ATM. It is almost real time payment system provided by NPCI for its member bank customers or merchants. Unlike National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT), which is available only during the banking hours on working days, IMPS is available anytime 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the year, irrespective of public holidays, Balachandran M, Chairman, NPCI said.

“Presently, an average 600,000 transactions are carried out in a month involving transfer of Rs 11,000 crore. We expect to touch one million transactions by September and two million transactions by March 2016,” he told reporters, here after launching the IMPS service across two regional rural banks of Canara Bank.

IMPS was launched in 2010 as a channel independent retail payment service, introduced by NPCI empowering customers to transfer funds real-time to another person or to a merchant, for any personal or commercial purpose.

Among RRBS, Kashi Komti Grameen Bank, Maharashtra Grameen Bank, UP Grameen Bank were the first to offer IMPS for their customers. Today, two RRBs sponsored by Canara Bank such as Pragati Krishna Grameen Bank and Kerala Grameen Bank launched IMPS. Canara Bank has already implemented IMPS during the year 2011 as part of its mobile banking application, S Bhat, chief general manager, Canara Bank said.

“We are in talks with State Bank of India to bring their 18 RRBs under the IMPS system. By end of March 2016, we want to launch IMPS across all the RRBs,” A P Hota, Managing Director & CEO, NPCI, said.

He said the NPCI is working towards launching the foreign inward remittance service very soon. Currently, it is offered by PNB for selected remittances from the US. It will be made available across the banks in the next few months, he added.

The two RRBs of Canara Bank are providing services like balance enquiry, mini statement, stop payment, intra bank funds transfer and inter-bank funds transfer using NEFT. Both the Banks together have achieved a total business in excess of Rs 40,000 crore.

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• The IMPS service offers instant, 24x7, interbank electronic funds transfer through the mobile, internet and ATM
• It is almost real time payment system provided by National Payments Corporation of India for its member bank customers or merchants