RBI to penalise banks for failing to timely replenish currency notes in ATMs from Oct 1

The Reserve Bank of India has decided to penalise banks for failing to timely replenish currency notes in ATM machines. From October 12 onwards, the RBI will start imposing fines on banks in case their ATMs remain out of cash for 10 hours in a month. This move is expected to address the concerns of account holders who are often inconvenienced by the non-availability of cash in ATMs.

"A review of downtime of ATMs due to cash-outs was undertaken and it was observed that ATM operations affected by cash-outs lead to non-availability of cash and cause avoidable inconvenience to the members of the public," RBI said in a circular

The central bank added, "It has, therefore, been decided that the banks/white label ATM operators (WLAOs) will strengthen their systems/ mechanisms to monitor the availability of cash in ATMs and ensure timely replenishment to avoid cash-outs."

"Any non-compliance in this regard shall be viewed seriously and shall attract monetary penalty as stipulated in the 'Scheme of Penalty for non-replenishment of ATMs'," the RBI stated.

The central bank stated the 'Scheme of Penalty for non-replenishment of ATMs will come into play "when the customer is not able to withdraw cash due to non-availability of cash in a particular ATM". It added the non-availability of cash at ATMs will attract a "flat penalty" of Rs 10,000 per ATM.

In the case of white label ATMs, the penalty would be charged to the bank, which is meeting the cash requirement of that particular ATM. "The bank, may, at its discretion, recover the penalty from the WLA operator," the RBI added.

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