JOIN USCanara Bank's mobile ATM brings smile to many faces
People walking on MG Road on Sunday evening were in for a pleasant surprise, when they came across a big blue van which was meant to help them withdraw cash.
Thanks to the initiative by public sector lender Canara Bank, the mobile ATM helped 800 customers withdraw around Rs 8 lakh in cash.
Speaking to DH, Canara Bank General Manager (Circle Office) M M Chiniwar said, “I was taking a stroll in the evening on MG Road and found that most of the ATMs were running out of cash. So, I got our mobile ATM, which serves Bengaluru Rural customers, pressed into service.”
“The ATM van arrived at 5.30 pm and most of the people were happy to withdraw money in a short duration as they need not had to wait in longer queues at conventional ATMs,” he added. “Normalcy will be restored once the RBI pumps in new currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 denominations. There is no need to panic. ATMs are running out of cash because we are placing only Rs 100 notes. Of the 866 ATMs in Bengaluru, only 250 have sufficient cash. We are loading Rs 4 lakh per day into each ATM. However, it is getting exhausted in little over an hour,” he said.
To a query, Chiniwar said, “ATMs are yet to be configurated to dispense Rs 2,000 notes and engineers are working on it. We are expecting new Rs 500 notes. They will configure the ATMs in the next three or four days to dispense new notes of both the denominations. We had a discussion with RBI officials and we were told that by Tuesday or Wednesday, when sufficient cash arrives, the rush at banks and ATMs would come down considerably.”
Chiniwar urged customers to visit bank branches to withdraw money, when ATMs are running out of cash. “We have separate counters for depositing cash, withdrawing cash and exchanging notes.”
DH News Service
Rs 10K crore deposited in 3 days
The scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 has come as a boon to banks. In the last three days, Canara Bank has seen 40 lakh transactions per day, across the country.
Over 1.2 crore people have used the banking facility. “Canara Bank has received Rs 10,000 crore deposits. This way our CASA (current and savings account ratio) will grow. It will improve our deposit rates, advances and loans. The Benglauru Circle, which consists of 561 branches, has seen a growth of Rs 500 crore in deposits in three days,” Chinniwar said.