Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) was publicly launched on which date?

Concept

IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) is a real-time, 24x7 interbank electronic fund-transfer service in India, operated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). It lets a customer move money instantly between bank accounts using a mobile phone, internet or ATM, on any day including bank holidays. Knowing the milestone dates of India's payment systems — when a service moved from a limited pilot to a full public launch — is a standard banking-awareness fact.

Application

NPCI first ran IMPS as a restricted pilot in August 2010 with a small set of member banks. The service was then formally opened to the public, and that public launch is the milestone this question asks about:

1. NPCI conducted the IMPS pilot in August 2010 with a few member banks (including State Bank of India, Bank of India, Union Bank of India and ICICI Bank).

2. The full public launch took place on 22nd November 2010, inaugurated by Smt. Shyamala Gopinath, then Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), at Mumbai.

3. More member banks (such as Yes Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank) joined later, expanding the network.

So the correct public-launch date is 22nd November 2010.

Cross-check / Contrast

The other dates are close-looking distractors that change either the year or the day/month:

• 23rd November 2010 — shifts the day by one; the inauguration was on the 22nd, not the 23rd.

• 22nd November 2011 — keeps the day and month but pushes the year forward by one, by which time IMPS was already operational for about a year.

• 22nd November 2012 — pushes the year forward by two; this is two years after the actual public launch.

• 22nd December 2010 — keeps the day and year but changes the month to December, whereas the launch was in November.