Cash managers get ATM nightmares
Aesha, a Mumbai suburban resident in Borivali, was third time lucky: the third ATM she checked was functioning. Getting into queue, she said, “With this mad rush and 50 people ahead of me, I doubt I will be able to withdraw any cash.”
Mad rush, long queues and even longer wait to withdraw cash from ATMs is the scene of many streets across cities including Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Many ATMs were out of service even in big cities as cash management companies were struggling to fill machines with the limited supply of 100-rupee notes.
The exercise of filling up 220,000 ATMs with 8,800 currency vans and a manpower of just 35,000, the exercise called for multiple visits.
Cash management firm Securitrans India’s business head, Anush Raghavan, said, “Usually, an ATM can store about ₹15-20 lakh of cash, but given the limitation of 100 rupee notes, it will be at the most about ₹2 lakh. So, ATMs will be running at just about 10% capacity.”
The need to evacuate, count and safely send the cash to banks and refill the ATMs has become a nightmare for both the companies and the people, who braved long queues which ran out of cash super fast.
Said Raghavan, “Our 3-fold plan is to pull out existing 500 and 1000 notes, refill 100 rupee notes from the banks, configure ATMs to limit the withdrawals at ₹2,000. Typically, there are 15 visits in a month for each ATM; now it will be 2-3 times daily or maybe more.”
Rajiv Kaul, CEO and vicechairman, CMS Info Systems, which handles about 4,500 cash vans, “Our immediate focus is on evacuation and replenishment of ATMs across the country. We not only need to replenish the machines with the new notes but also ensure every ATM recognises the new notes and manages multiple replenishments due to lower denominations.”
At AGS Transact Technologies, another ATM manufacturer and technology provider, a senior official said, “We cannot even employ more people as these are trained staff and need trusted people. Our existing staff has been working from 5 am till late evening.”
Assuring of sufficient cash availability, RBI said Friday evening that it has made arrangements to distribute the new notes as well as notes in smaller denominations across the country.
SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said, “Practical problems are that most ATMs have a configuration of just 1 cassette of 100 rupee notes and one cassette has just 2,500 notes which get over soon. Hence more cassettes are required to be added. Within 3-4 days, things will become much better. Whatever is exchanged and deposited has been replenished in the system. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any cash crunch. The only problem is logistical where I have to ensure the cash reaches to the required branches and ATMs.”