RTGS System – Mandatory Beneficiary Account Number

There has been a fantastic jump in RTGS Transactions since January 2009, in our country.

The figures below  are proof of the same.

RTGS - India
	Total Volumes
Jan-09	1,436,951
Oct-09	2,925,034
Total Jump	1,488,083
% Jump	104

To make RTGS Transactions more user friendly and more importantly, customer-friendly, Reserve Bank of India, Department of Payments and Systems, have introduced a series of Safety/Additional Features in RTGS messages.

Towards this end, Reserve Bank of India, vide Lr.No. RBI/2009-10/215
DPSS (CO) RTGS No.949/ 04.04.002 / 2009 – 2010 dt. November 11, 2009, addressed to Chairman and Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer of all banks participating in RTGS, has made it mandatory to include the Beneficiary Account Number in R41 i.e Customer RTGS Message.

The complete notification can be viewed @

http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=5359&Mode=0

The highlights of the Notification are:

01) No RTGS participant would be able to originate a R41 message without beneficiary account number filled in the line 1 of field tag 5561.

02)  Line 1(account number field) would be alpha-numeric and would not allow special characters and spaces in between.

03) The Notification will be effective from the date on receipt of the requisite IT Patch for PI (Participant Interface), by Reserve Bank of India.

Field tag 5561
Line 1	Account number	[/34X]
Line 2	Name of the Beneficiary	35X
Line 3, 4 and 5	Address and Place of Residence	3*35X

Meanwhile, Banks have to

01)                      Ensure that all their account numbers adhere to the new routing rules i.e Numeric/Alpha Numeric/No special characters or spaces in between.

02)                     Ensure that checks are in-built in their interface software to RBI, to ensure that all their R41 messages contain the Beneficiary Account Number.

03)                     Educate the RTGS users within the Bank, about the applicability of the new rule.

The above notification, will aid in R41 Transactions to move effortlessly in STP (Straight-Thru-Processing) environment. This will result in quicker credit to Customers Accounts, which in turn will boost the Banks CASA.

As more and more R41 Transactions move to the STP, the transaction processing cost too will reduce automatically.

ePayments=High CASA=High CASA=Profits for the Bank. Profits for the Bank=Large Dividend Payout=Large Dividend Payout=Higher Share Price.