New Delhi: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Friday announced that National Automated Clearing House (NACH) will be available on all days of the week, effective August 1, 2021.
What is National Automated Clearing House (NACH)?
NACH is a bulk payment system operated by the NPCI. It facilitates one-to-many credit transfers such as payment of dividend, interest, salary, pension, etc., as also collection of payments pertaining to electricity, gas, telephone, water, periodic instalments towards loans, investments in mutual funds, insurance premium, etc.
"NACH has emerged as a popular and prominent mode of direct benefit transfer (DBT) to large number of beneficiaries. This has helped transfer of government subsidies during the present COVID-19 in a timely and transparent manner. In order to further enhance customer convenience, and to leverage the 24x7 availability of RTGS, NACH which is currently available on bank working days, is proposed to be made available on all days of the week effective from August 1, 2021," said RBI.
The Central Bank adde that the relevant instructions/circulars for all these measures will be issued separately.
The Reserve Bank of India today decided to leave benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4 per cent but maintained an accommodative stance as the economy faces heat of the second COVID wave.
This is the sixth time in a row that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) headed by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das has maintained status quo. RBI had last revised its policy rate on May 22, 2020, in an off-policy cycle to perk up demand by cutting interest rate to a historic low.