With overall payment systems infrastructure in the country moving northward, the value of Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) transactions decreased during third quarter of the current fiscal year, FY12. The reason for the decrease cited by the central bank is a steep slump in the securities settlement value that slid from Rs 18.7 trillion to Rs 16.1 trillion during January-March FY12.
“Although the volume of large-value payments through RTGS increased by 8.8 percent, the value of transactions recorded a decline of 8.2 percent,” said the State Bank in a latest review.
However, the regulator said despite the 8.2 percent dip, the major portion of RTGS transactions continued to be in respect of settlements against securities followed by Interbank Funds Transfers and settlement of retail cheques through multilateral clearing contributing 57.7, 31.5 and 10.8 percent, respectively.
The country’s overall payment systems, the bank said, kept growing during the quarter in review.
It said a total of 203 more ATMs were added bringing the total number of ATMs in the country to 5,612 whereas 269 more bank branches were up-graded to Real-Time Online Branches (RTOB).
Currently, 9,174 bank branches are offering RTOB services out of total of 10,009 bank branches across country. The number of plastic cards also increased by 9.47 percent compared to the numbers recorded in the preceding quarter. By the end of quarter under review, there were 16.7 million plastic cards circulating in the country. The volume of overall e-banking transactions in the country during the quarter under review registered an increase of 5.9 percent to 70.9 million. At this level, the value of these transactions also depicted a growth of 6.47 percent compared to the preceding quarter ended December, 2011. The overall number of ATM transactions also showed an increase of 5.6 percent and the value increased by 8.6 percent. The average value per ATM transaction stands at Rs 9,828.
The share of ATM transactions in total e-banking transactions in terms of volume and value worked out to 59.6 percent and 6.0 percent respectively.
Compared to the figures reported in previous quarter, the number of Real Time Online Branches (RTOB) transactions also increased by 6.15 percent whereas the value of transactions increased by 6.14 percent.
The volume and value of transactions through POS terminals stood at 4.5 million and Rs 21.2 billion depicting 7.0 and 8.3 percent growth, respectively, compared to the figures reported in the previous quarter.
