NEFT

National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) is a facility of funds transfer. Under this Scheme, individuals, firms and corporate can electronically transfer funds from any bank account to any other bank account in any branch in the country.

Q.1. Who can transfer funds using NEFT?

Ans: Individuals, firms or corporates maintaining accounts with a bank branch can transfer funds using NEFT. Even such individuals who do not have a bank account (walk-in customers) can also deposit cash at the NEFT-enabled branches with instructions to transfer funds using NEFT. However, such cash remittances will be restricted to a maximum of Rs.50,000/- per transaction.

Q.2. Is there any limit on the amount that could be transferred using NEFT?

Ans: No. There is no limit – either minimum or maximum – on the amount of funds that could be transferred using NEFT.

Q.3. What are the timings of NEFT?

Ans : NEFT is done in hourly batches - there are twelve settlements from 8 am to 7 pm on week days (Monday to Friday) and six settlements from 8 am to 1 pm on Saturdays.

Q.4. What is IFSC?

Ans : IFSC or Indian Financial System Code is an alpha-numeric code that uniquely identifies a bank-branch participating in the NEFT system. This is an 11 digit code with the first 4 alpha characters representing the bank, and the last 6 characters representing the branch. The 5th character is 0 (zero). IFSC is used by the NEFT system to identify the originating / destination banks / branches and also to route the messages appropriately to the concerned banks / branches.

Q.5. What are the processing or service charges for NEFT transactions?

Ans: The structure of charges that can be levied on the customer for NEFT is given below:

 -  For transactions above Rs 1 lakh and up to Rs 2 lakhs: not exceeding Rs 15 (+ Service Tax)

-  For transactions above Rs 2 lakhs: not exceeding Rs 25 (+ Service Tax)

Q.6. What will happen if credit is not afforded to the account of the beneficiary?

Ans: If it is not possible to afford credit to the account of the beneficiary for whatever reason, destination banks are required to return the transaction (to the originating branch) within two hours of completion of the batch in which the transaction was processed.

For example, if a customer submits a fund transfer request at 12.05 p.m. to a NEFT-enabled branch, the branch in turn forwards the message through its pooling centre to the NEFT Clearing Centre for processing in the immediately available batch which (say) is the 1.00 pm batch. If the destination bank is unable to afford the credit to the beneficiary for any reason, it has to return the transaction to the originating bank, not later than in the 3.00 pm batch. On receiving such a returned transaction, the originating bank has to credit the amount back to account of the originating customer. To conclude, for all uncredited transactions, customers can reasonably expect the funds to be received back by them in around 3 to 4 hours time.