The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) vide its circular on ‘National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) and Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) systems – Waiver of charges’ dated 11.06.2019, has decided that with effect from July 1, 2019, processing charges and time varying charges levied on banks by RBI for outward transactions undertaken using the RTGS system, as also the processing charges levied by RBI for transactions processed in NEFT system would be waived by the Reserve Bank.

The banks are also advised by RBI to pass on the benefits to their customers for undertaking transactions using RTGS and NEFT systems. This waiver of processing and time varying charges by RBI on banks will reduce the cost of RTGS and NEFT transactions and will give fillip to digital fund  movement.

There is an increase in NEFT and RTGS transactions during the last three years as illustrated in the table given below (in crore) :

Year	RTGS (Customer + Interbank)	NEFT
2016-17	10.78	162.21
2017-18	12.44	194.64
2018-19	13.66	231.89

 Source: RBI

As apprised by RBI, total number of online transactions including Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), Electronic Clearing Service (ECS), National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT), Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), National Automated Clearing House (NACH), Unified Payment Interface (UPI) (including Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)), Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs), Credit Cards at Point of Sale (PoS) and online, Debit Cards at Point of Sale (PoS) and online (in crore) since 2016-17 is as follows:

Year	Total Transactions (in crore)
2016-17	977.94
2017-18	1471.19
2018-19	2338.44

This was stated by Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha. 

Waiver of charges on NEFT and RTGS reduces transaction costs and urges banks to pass benefits to customers. Waiver of processing and time varying charges took effect from July 1, 2019: the central bank removed processing charges and time varying fees for outward RTGS transactions and processing charges for NEFT, and advised banks to pass benefits to customers to reduce costs and promote digital fund movement.