Immediate payment by payment method Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) 003-10030040

RTGS is a priority direct credit payment method that can deliver payments to a customer's bank account within a few hours. RTGS is only used if the customer's bank account is not reachable by the New Payments Platform.

The RTGS facility can only be used to issue:

• urgent payment
• hardship advance
• Crisis Payment, or
• Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment (AGDRP)/Disaster Recovery Payment for New Zealand Special Category (subclass 444) visa holders (NZ DRP)

Note: NZ DRP was previously known as ex-gratia Disaster Recovery Payment (ex-gratia DRP).

When issuing these payments, consider the payment method appropriate for the customer.

The preference is to pay the customer into their bank account by either direct credit, or priority direct credit (NPP or RTGS). Only consider an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card if these options are not suitable.

The Immediate Payment requests script will check if an account is NPP or RTGS enabled before displaying it as method payment option.

The hours of operation for the RTGS payment facility are weekdays between 8:00 am - 3:30 pm (NSW and VIC time). The first payment run for each day is 9 am. Hours of operation for each state can be found on the Resources page.

RTGS can be selected as a payment method after 3:30 pm (NSW and VIC time), but the payment will not be issued until the next business day. If the payment is being made to the smaller banks and Credit Unions it may take up to 2 working days to be received into the customer's account.

An urgent payment by RTGS will not be available on national or concurrent public holidays in Sydney and Melbourne or to bank accounts that are not RTGS enabled. In these cases, if the customer needs the payment immediately, it is to be issued using NPP. If the customer's account is not NPP reachable, consideration can be given to issue the payment by an EBT card so the customer can meet their immediate needs.

The financial institution decides the amount of the fees or charges and processing timeframes. The customer will need to negotiate any fee charged with their individual financial institution. Specific RTGS time frames and fees information are not available to Services Australia.

If an account is NPP reachable, but the payment fails to deliver, it will automatically re-issue using RTGS if available, or by direct credit.

NPP and RTGS should only be used if the customer previously had a regular payment issued to the payment destination (except Crisis Payment and AGDRP). Customers will not be able to use the self service channels if they have changed their payment destination before requesting the urgent payment and have not yet received a regular payment into this account.

When a payment is granted, it will generally be delivered in one or two business days depending on the payment type.

For customers granted an immediate payment, staff can reissue some or all of the payment via the New Payments Platform (NPP) or Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), depending on the customer's financial institution's capabilities, or via an Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card.

Both the original and immediate payments will display on the Payment Summary (PS) screen for staff and on the View Payments History for customers via Centrelink Online Accounts. These payments will display by most recent delivery date.

The original payment will show the full Gross amount, with the Net amount reduced by the immediate payment amount delivered via RTGS.

The immediate payment will display under the original payment, and can be identified by 'RealTime' under the 'Type' column.

If the activity has been selected by QOL, it must be checked immediately. If QOL is not completed and the RTGS activity released and received by the RBA before 3:30 pm (NSW and VIC time), the RTGS payment will not be delivered until the next business day.

Make sure the customer record accessed is the correct one by asking authentication questions to verify Proof of Record Ownership (PORO) before assessing or issuing, an immediate payment. See Authenticating a Centrelink customer for a detailed process.

An urgent payment should only be issued to SRSS customers if the payment has been delayed due to Centrelink error, and the customer is in severe financial hardship, see Urgent payment due to Centrelink delay. The payment can only be processed through the Issue RTGS. Payment guided procedure in Customer First. The guided procedure is only visible/available to staff with specialist access.

Issues with access to the guided procedure, or payment of the full entitlement should be directed to the SRSS Level 1 Helpdesk.