RBI Dy Gov plays down fake notes issue, says they are odd cases

Deputy governor R Gandhi on Thursday termed the rare instances of fake currencies coming out of ATMs as "odd cases" that should not cause too much concern, but assured the Reserve Bank is willing to relook at guidelines for outsourced cash management agencies. "How many cases of fake notes being dispensed by over 2 lakh odd ATMs? One should not blow it out of proportion. It should not cause too much concern...if any changes are needed in the third-party cash handling (who fill up the cash machines), we will do that," Gandhi told here.

He also appealed to the public to develop a habit of periodically checking the notes for its genuinity. Over the past week, there have been reports of fake notes allegedly coming out of ICICI Bank and SBI cash vending machines.

"Its not that all ATMs are dispensing fake notes, one odd case was noted. We cannot generalise," Gandhi said. Even though official data on growth has suggested that the economy has been resilient to demonetisation, Gandhi today reiterated that there will be a "transitory" impact to the economy that was mentioned in the policy statement last month. He said the RBI had gone by the data only for two weeks while making the estimate on having a transitory impact. Meanwhile, when asked about instances of banks hiking cash handling charges, Gandhi said this is not a trend of banks hiking service charges as they have only been taken back to the pre-demonetisation levels, and assured intervention in case they become unreasonable.

While delivering a speech at the Globallaw event here, Gandhi also hit out against complex structures being used for tax avoidance purposes, calling it a challenge for regulators.