SBI, PNB, Axis, HDFC Bank, ICICI or any other bank’s customer? Check new NEFT timings

NEFT Timings: Customers of SBI, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Punjab National Bank, ICICI Bank or any other commercial lender can do National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) transactions 24×7 from today. The facility will now be available on any day of the week or month, including holidays. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed this facility to be available at all times throughout the year.

For smooth settlement of NEFT transactions, the RBI has decided to provide additional collateralised intra-day liquidity facility. “In order to facilitate smooth settlement of NEFT transactions in the accounts of the member banks maintained with the Reserve Bank in a 24×7 environment, it has been decided to provide an additional collateralised intra-day liquidity facility, to be called Liquidity Support (LS),” RBI informed member banks on Friday last.

The central bank said that the liquidity support facility will be available for facilitating NEFT settlements, on 24×7 basis.

All major banks including SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank do not charge anything for online NEFT transactions. The RBI had waived off charges on fund transfer through NEFT in July this year.

Earlier in the ‘Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies’ dated October 4, 2019, the RBI had announced to provide collateralised liquidity support to banks for smooth settlement of NEFT transactions. “In order to facilitate smooth settlement of these transactions in the accounts of the banks maintained with the Reserve Bank, it has been decided that the Reserve Bank will extend the collateralised liquidity support, which is currently available till 7.45 pm on NEFT working days, round the clock. This will help in better funds management by banks,” RBI had said.

NEFT transfer timings

The settlement of NEFT transfers will now be done round-the-clock in half-hourly batches. The settlement of the first batch will start after 12.30 am and the last at midnight. As the settlement of last NEFT transfer batch will end at midnight, bank customers might not be able to do transfer money via NEFT for an hour between 11.30 pm and 12.30 am.

Earlier, NEFT transfers were settled between 8 am to 7 pm. On first and third Saturdays, the settlement was done between 8 am to 1 pm.