Cashless ATMs may impose penalty of Rs 10,000 to Banks, says RBI
As per RBI, if there is no cash in the ATMs then penalty of RS 10,000 will be imposed to banks. Know the details.
Recently, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has introduced a scheme to impose penalty on banks if ATMs remain out-of-cash. In a circular, the RBI stated, "The ‘Scheme of Penalty for Non-replenishment of ATMs’ has been formulated to ensure that sufficient cash is available to the public through ATMs."
‘Scheme of Penalty’
The RBI has a mandate issue banknotes and this mandate is fulfilled by banks through dispensing banknotes to the public with their wide network of branches and ATMs. The Rbi observed, "ATM operations affected by cash-outs lead to non-availability of cash and cause avoidable inconvenience to the members of the public."
RBI has asked the banks or White Label ATM Operators (WLAOs) to strengthen their systems. The banks are required to monitor the availability of cash in ATMs and to ensure timely replenishment to avoid cash-outs.
Ensure Money at ATMs or Face Penalty, says RBI to Banks
"If bank fails to ensure timely availability of cash at ATMs, it will face a lumpsum penalty. 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", RBI said.
Penalty of Rs 10,000
The RBI stated, "If ATMs fail to dispense cash for more than 10 hours in a month, the bank will face a penalty of Rs 10,000 per ATM. For White Label ATMs failing to ensure the cash at ATMs, the penalty would be charged to the bank, which is meeting the cash requirement of that particular operator."
Applicability of Penalty
The RBI said the penalty would be imposed ‘when the customer is not able to withdraw cash due to non-availability of cash in a particular ATM’. The new rule will be effective from October onwards.
Penalty will be imposed by
Issue departments of the regional offices of the Bank will be administering the 'Scheme of Penalty'. The officer-in-charge of the issue department of the Regional Office of banks under whose jurisdiction the ATMs are located, can impose penalty on banks and ATMs. The lenders will be able to appeal against the decision within one month from the date of imposition of penalty.
In addition, the RBI said, “As the intention of the scheme is to ensure replenishment of ATMs in time, appeals would be considered only in cases of genuine reasons beyond the control of bank or WLAOs such as, imposition of lockdown by the state or administrative authorities, strike, etc."
