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As the country comes to terms with Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes no longer being legal tender, banks have stepped up the activity to ensure that the ATM networks and the branches are replenished with smaller denomination notes.
State Bank of India (SBI), country's largest lender, is also looking at hiring retired bank officials who are experienced in cash and ATM operations to handle additional pressures, said Rajnish Kumar, managing director (National Banking group) at SBI. He also added that depending on work pressure branches will have extra cash counters to ensure that the inconvenience to customers can be reduced.
With largest ATM network in the country under its wing, SBI handles on an average 10 million withdrawal transactions involving cash worth Rs 2,800 crore every day. This is without exceptional restrictions which will limit the maximum withdrawal to Rs 2,000 per day from ATMs. The lender believes that with this restriction in place bank will be in a position to handle an increase in traffic at ATM.
"Keeping in mind restrictions on maximum withdrawals could mean Rs 2,000 crore cash taken out from ATMs. The currency chests are ready to manage demand. For additional amounts we can raise indent on Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to get a timely supply of currency notes," said another SBI executive.
This comes after the government announced in a surprise move that Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes will not be considered as legal tender effective from 9th November. As a result, the banks are closed to public on Wednesday and the ATMs will also not be operational on Wednesday and on Thursday. They will re-open on November 11th.
In order to step up, the work banks have also extended working hours. "We are setting up additional cash counters at all branches for dealing with the additional cash transactions expected. We are also extending our business hours for assisting all customers / general public for their cash transactions. We have advised all our branches and staff to explain the rationale of this development to the customers and comfort them," said Rakesh Sharma, managing director (MD) & chief executive officer, Canara Bank.
The RBI has also directed banks to keep their branches open over the weekend as well as regular working days.
"In order to meet the anticipated heavy demand from members of the public to conduct their banking transactions, it has been decided that banks shall remain open for public transactions on Saturday, November 12 and Sunday, November 13, 2016," said the RBI.
NCR, one of the players that manage the ATM networks said that they have been in constant touch with all the banks since last night to ensure that the money in ATMs can be replaced quickly, said Navroze Dastur, MD of NCR India.
Rajiv Kaul, executive vice chairman and chief executive, CMS Info Systems Ltd, an ATM cash management firm, said the volume of currency notes put in ATMs will grow two-three times compared to volumes handled in normal day-to-day working.
"This poses logistical and management challenge for which existing staff and systems will work more. The increase in volumes would be short term phenomenon. It is a skilled job so would not hike staff strength for this. Existing set up would work extra time to ensure effective management," he added.
Bankers are also looking for ways to allay the customers' fears to ensure that a panic situation is not created when the branches open up tomorrow.
RBI meets banks, ATM players to ensure smooth management
The Reserve Bank of India met up with banks and players that manage the ATM network to once again reinstate that the convenience to the customer has to be minimised. In a meeting, the central bank met up with the players to understand the process of restocking the ATMs. Even though concerns were raised on the timeline, RBI has directed that banks and the ATM network players need to step up the effort and ensure that minimum inconvenience is caused to the customers.
