Under which Act does the Reserve Bank of India regulate and supervise payment systems in the country?

The correct answer is C, two lakh rupees. RTGS is meant for large value payments, and the Reserve Bank has fixed a floor of two lakh rupees for a remittance through it, while setting no ceiling of its own on the amount. Option A is wrong because a transfer of ten thousand rupees would go through NEFT, IMPS or UPI, none of which has a minimum. Option B is wrong because one lakh rupees is below the floor and would be refused by the system. Option D is wrong because five lakh rupees is well above the floor and can certainly be sent by RTGS; it is the figure to which the Reserve Bank raised the per transaction ceiling for IMPS in 2021, which is why it appears as a distractor here. Fix the pairing in memory: RTGS has a minimum and no maximum, while NEFT and IMPS have no minimum at all.

The correct answer is A, National Electronic Funds Transfer. NEFT is the nationwide system operated by the Reserve Bank of India for transferring funds from one bank account to another, settled on a deferred net basis in half hourly batches and available on all days of the year since December 2019. Options B, C and D are wrong because they are invented expansions of the same four letters, and none of them is used in any Reserve Bank circular; papers build such options because a candidate who has only heard the abbreviation spoken will not have seen it written out. Remember the three expansions together, since they are often asked in one question: RTGS is Real Time Gross Settlement, NEFT is National Electronic Funds Transfer and IMPS is Immediate Payment Service.

The correct answer is B, RTGS. The words in the name say it: real time means the instruction is carried out as it is received, and gross settlement means each instruction is settled by itself rather than set off against others. Settlement is final and irrevocable once done, which is what a large value payment needs. Option A is wrong because NEFT works on deferred net settlement, collecting instructions and settling the net position in half hourly batches. Option C is wrong because NACH is a bulk clearing system for repeated credits and debits such as salary, pension, subsidy and instalments, which is the opposite of transaction by transaction settlement. Option D is wrong because the Cheque Truncation System clears cheques in sessions by sending their images, again in batches. Gross with RTGS and net with NEFT is the distinction papers test most often.

The correct answer is C, the National Payments Corporation of India. IMPS was launched by that organisation in 2010 and was the first Indian system to offer interbank transfer instantly at any hour, including Sundays and holidays. Option A is wrong because the Reserve Bank operates RTGS and NEFT but not IMPS, although it regulates every payment system under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act of 2007. Option B is wrong because the State Bank of India is a member bank of the system, not its operator. Option D is wrong because the Indian Banks Association, along with the Reserve Bank, promoted the National Payments Corporation of India but does not run the service itself. Group the products by owner: RTGS and NEFT with the Reserve Bank, and IMPS, UPI, RuPay, NACH, AEPS, BBPS and FASTag with the National Payments Corporation of India.

The correct answer is B, on a deferred net basis, in half hourly batches. NEFT holds instructions for a short period, works out what each bank owes the others on balance, and settles only that difference; the batches run every half hour through all twenty four hours, since the service was made available on all days of the year in December 2019. Option A is wrong because settling each instruction the moment it arrives is the method of RTGS, not NEFT. Option C is wrong because a single settlement at the close of the day was the practice of older clearing arrangements and was never how NEFT worked. Option D is wrong because settlement between the banks is not made to wait for a confirmation from the beneficiary bank, although the credit to the customer's account does follow the settlement. Net settlement in batches is the phrase to carry into the hall.