NEW DELHI: India today saw serpentine queues at the ATMs and banks as people rushed to withdraw valid currency.
While banks have started dispensing the new ₹500 and ₹2000 bills, the situation at ATMs seems dire with reports of many being shut as they ran out of cash.
ATMs across the country will dispense only ₹100 notes for the next few weeks.
This means machines will be stocked with less cash overall because of the lower denomination of notes.
Usually, ATMs could store ₹1000 and ₹500 notes and there could be, technically ₹88 lakh in an ATM if all were ₹1000 notes. This was limited by a ceiling imposed by the RBI.
A typical ATM has four cassettes in it. Each cassette holds 22 packets of notes. Each packet has 100 notes in it.
Now, with most dispensing ₹100 notes, the maximum each ATM will hold is ₹8.8 lakh.
Assuming each person going into an ATM draws to the upper limit of ₹2000, that makes it 20 notes. That in turn means each ATM can handle a maximum of 440 transactions per day.
If you have waited in line at an ATM in the past couple of days, you have probably realised that there is much more than 440 people waiting to draw cash.
Also, most ATMs are not calibrated to dispense the new ₹2000 notes.
Adding to the chaos is the logistical challenge of first flushing out the older currency - the ₹1000 and ₹500 notes. After these have been removed, the ATMs have to be resupplied with the ₹100 notes that everyone now wants and needs. There are over 2,00,000 ATMs where this needs to be done.
The Reserve Bank of India has appealed to the public to be patient while exchanging their demonetised currency notes while reiterating that there is enough cash available with banks.
In a press release on its website, the RBI said it has made arrangements to distribute currency all across the country but it may take a while for banks to recalibrate their ATMs. "Once the ATMs are functional, members of public will be able to withdraw from ATMs up to a maximum of ₹2,000 per card per day up to November 18, 2016; and after that up to withdraw ₹4000 per day per card," RBI said.
There are over 2 lakh ATMs and over 1,31,000 branches across the country, of which 20,565 belong to the private lenders.
While banks have started dispensing the new ₹500 and ₹2000 bills, the situation at ATMs seems dire with reports of many being shut as they ran out of cash.
ATMs across the country will dispense only ₹100 notes for the next few weeks.
This means machines will be stocked with less cash overall because of the lower denomination of notes.
Usually, ATMs could store ₹1000 and ₹500 notes and there could be, technically ₹88 lakh in an ATM if all were ₹1000 notes. This was limited by a ceiling imposed by the RBI.
A typical ATM has four cassettes in it. Each cassette holds 22 packets of notes. Each packet has 100 notes in it.
Now, with most dispensing ₹100 notes, the maximum each ATM will hold is ₹8.8 lakh.
Assuming each person going into an ATM draws to the upper limit of ₹2000, that makes it 20 notes. That in turn means each ATM can handle a maximum of 440 transactions per day.
If you have waited in line at an ATM in the past couple of days, you have probably realised that there is much more than 440 people waiting to draw cash.
Also, most ATMs are not calibrated to dispense the new ₹2000 notes.
Adding to the chaos is the logistical challenge of first flushing out the older currency - the ₹1000 and ₹500 notes. After these have been removed, the ATMs have to be resupplied with the ₹100 notes that everyone now wants and needs. There are over 2,00,000 ATMs where this needs to be done.
The Reserve Bank of India has appealed to the public to be patient while exchanging their demonetised currency notes while reiterating that there is enough cash available with banks.
In a press release on its website, the RBI said it has made arrangements to distribute currency all across the country but it may take a while for banks to recalibrate their ATMs. "Once the ATMs are functional, members of public will be able to withdraw from ATMs up to a maximum of ₹2,000 per card per day up to November 18, 2016; and after that up to withdraw ₹4000 per day per card," RBI said.
There are over 2 lakh ATMs and over 1,31,000 branches across the country, of which 20,565 belong to the private lenders.
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