Wrong IFSC, wrong account number: what actually happens to your money

Short version:

• Wrong IFSC — the instruction is addressed to a branch that cannot accept it, and it is normally rejected and returned. Annoying, recoverable.
• Wrong account number — if the number happens to belong to a real account, the transfer succeeds. The money is credited to that account. Your recourse is a grievance process, not an automatic reversal.

The rest of this page is the evidence, because this is a subject where a lot of confident and wrong advice circulates.

The IFSC routes. It does not choose the account.

The RBI's own description of what an IFSC does:

Indian Financial System Code (IFSC) is an alpha-numeric code that uniquely identifies a bank-branch participating in the NEFT system. It is a 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).

RBI, NEFT FAQ, Question 4

Identifies a branch. That is the whole job. It is the address on the envelope, not the name on the cheque inside.

The account number decides everything else

This is the sentence to remember:

The credit is given to the account number written / given by remitter in his / her application / instruction. Credit to beneficiary account is released solely based on account number. It is the responsibility of remitting customer to write correct account number.

RBI, NEFT FAQ, Question 21

RTGS works the same way, and the RBI warns about it in similar terms:

Extreme care should be exercised in providing the account number of the beneficiary, as, during processing RTGS transactions, the credit will be given to the customer's account solely based on the account number provided in the RTGS remittance instruction / message.

RBI, RTGS FAQ, Question 11

Most pages that mention this cite the FAQ, and the FAQ itself says it is for general guidance only. The actual binding rule is a directive: RBI/2010-11/235, dated 14 October 2010, in force from 1 January 2011, issued under Section 10(2) of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. It says:

Responsibility to provide correct inputs in the payment instructions, particularly the beneficiary account number information, rests with the remitter / originator.

RBI/2010-11/235, DPSS (CO) EPPD No./863/04.03.01/2010-11

The beneficiary's name is carried in the message. It is not used to decide where the money goes. So a transfer to "Ramesh Kumar" at an account number belonging to someone else will credit that someone else, and nothing in the system will flag it.

The name check that arrived in 2025, and what it does not do

Since 1 April 2025 there has been a name look-up facility for NEFT and RTGS, introduced by RBI/2024-25/99 dated 30 December 2024. It does what you would hope:

Based on the account number and IFSC of the beneficiary entered by the remitter, the facility will fetch the beneficiary's account name from the bank's Core Banking Solution (CBS).

RBI/2024-25/99, CO.DPSS.RPPD.No.S987/04.03.001/2024-25

This is genuinely useful and worth using every time. But read the next part carefully, because several write-ups imply that NEFT and RTGS are now name-verified and therefore safe. They are not. The same circular says:

In case the beneficiary name cannot be displayed for any reason, the remitter can proceed with the fund transfer, at her discretion.

RBI/2024-25/99, Annex

Nothing blocks a transfer when the name does not match, or when no name comes back at all. The look-up shows you a name so that you can catch the mistake. The 2010 rule — credit on account number alone — is untouched.

So what happens with a wrong IFSC?

In practice, one of three things:

1. The code does not exist or is malformed. Your bank's own validation rejects it before the transfer is even attempted. Nothing leaves your account.
2. The code is valid but belongs to a different branch of the same bank. Many banks now route on the account number within their own network and the credit still lands correctly. Do not rely on this; it is a courtesy of core banking, not a rule.
3. The code is valid and belongs to a different bank. The destination bank has no such account and cannot credit it. This is the case the RBI's return rule is written for: destination banks must return the transaction within two hours of completion of the batch it was processed in.

A withdrawn IFSC — one belonging to a bank that has since merged — normally fails at step one. That is the safe outcome, and it is why so many people discover their code is dead only when a transfer bounces. Checking it first is easier.

If money has already gone to the wrong account

Here the honest answer is weaker than most pages suggest. The only RBI text that addresses a wrong credit already made puts an obligation on the banks to have a process, not on anyone to give your money back:

The above notwithstanding, in cases where it is found that credit has been afforded to a wrong account, banks need to establish a robust, transparent and quick grievance redressal mechanism to reverse such credits and set right the mistake and / or return the transaction to the originating bank.

RBI/2010-11/235, paragraph 5

In practice, your bank contacts the receiving bank, which contacts its customer and asks for consent to reverse the credit. If that person refuses, the money is not simply taken back — it becomes a civil matter. Speed helps, because it is much easier before the money is spent.

Note also what does not apply here. The two-hour NEFT return rule covers transactions that could not be credited at all. A wrong-but-valid account number produces a completed transaction, so there is no failure for that rule to attach to.

Escalation, with the actual timeline

1. Your bank's grievance redressal cell, immediately. Give the UTR or transaction reference, the amount, the date and the account number you used.
2. Then the Ombudsman. The RBI's own guidance is that if your grievance is not resolved within 30 days, you may complain under the Reserve Bank – Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, 2021, online at cms.rbi.org.in. The Scheme itself also lets you go there once the bank has rejected your complaint and you are not satisfied with its reply. Several pages online suggest a 7 or 15 day window; that is not what the RBI says.

Four habits that prevent all of this

• Copy the account number, never type it. Most wrong-account transfers are transposed digits, and a copied number cannot be transposed.
• Use the name look-up and actually read it. Since April 2025 your bank should show you the beneficiary's name before you confirm. If it shows a name you do not recognise, stop. If it shows nothing, treat that as a reason to check, not a formality to click past.
• Send Rs 1 first for a new payee. The oldest trick in Indian banking and still the best one.
• Re-check an IFSC you have not used in years. If your payee was saved before 2021 and the bank has since merged, the code may no longer exist. 46,719 codes in the RBI branch list have been withdrawn since 2016.