Pre-2005 notes can be exchanged till June

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday, once again, extended the date for exchanging pre-2005 currency notes with new ones to 30 June 2016 from 31 December.

Earlier, the exchange was facilitated through any bank branches, but from 1 January, only a few designated branches will accept the old notes for exchange, RBI said in a statement on its website. This is the fifth time RBI extended the deadline that started in January 2014. The old notes, of Mahatma Gandhi series, will continue to remain legal tenders, RBI stated but needs to be changed as new notes have better security features and it was a "standard international practice not to have currency notes from multiple series in simultaneous circulation," RBI stated.