Technical glitch in bank-RBI liquidity management system resolved

A technical glitch in the Automated Sweep-In and Sweep-Out System (ASISO), which allows lenders to manage their daily liquidity requirements with the Reserve Bank of India, was resolved on Wednesday, according to bank treasury officials.

The ASISO system, used by banks to park funds at the central bank's Standing Deposit Facility and to borrow from its Marginal Standing Facility, experienced its first failure on Tuesday since its inception nearly four years ago. Banks said the central bank will investigate the issue to find what led to the outage.

"ASISO, which is basically used for borrowing and lending to the RBI, had a technical glitch yesterday (Tuesday). The transactions did not get triggered. They identified it today and they rectified it. By the second half, they [RBI] were able to resolve it,” said a treasury head at a private bank.

Indian banks are required to deposit 4.5 per cent of their net deposits with the central bank and must maintain at least 90 per cent of this requirement daily. The Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) offers banks a way to access funds from the central bank during liquidity shortfalls.

ASISO, which was introduced in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, automates the process of liquidity management for banks.

The technical glitch prevented the ASISO facility in e-Kuber – the core banking solution of RBI – which is automatically triggered around midnight, from processing, said dealers.

“The transaction which was supposed to take place around 12 midnight took place this morning,” said a treasury head at a private bank.