State Bank of India to set up exchange centres, branches to be open till 6 pm

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: India's largest lender State Bank of India on Wednesday said it would set up exchange centres and that all branches will take open till 6 pm.

The bank also said it is gearing up to make available "adequate number" of Rs 100 notes at all its ATMs and branches within the next two days to help reduce the inconvenience to the public after the government last night scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes.

Earlier on Tuesday, following the demonesation of the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, the SBI tweeted, In the light of recent events, we want to assure you that, at SBI, your convenience will be our priority. “(sic)

In a sudden and major crackdown on black money, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday night scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes and said the notes would become illegal tenders from last midnight and massively curbed cash withdrawals through ATMs and from bank counters.

Following this announcment, the country's largest lender said it would open exchange centres and that all SBI branches would be open till 6 pm.

SBI Group which includes all its five subsidiaries has 55,000 ATMs and 7,000 cash deposit machines (CDMs). SBI alone has close to 17,000 branches and serves tens of millions of customers.

"We have adequate number of Rs 100 notes with us. We are working on the logistics to make then available across all our ATMs and branches and we will make them available in the next two days," SBI managing director Rajneesh Kumar told PTI today.

Besides, SBI has over 3,000 PoS machines, where customers can withdraw up to a certain amount, he added.

The news triggered panic and people started queueing up at all ATMs or CDMs to either withdraw money or deposit Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

Kumar said people do not have to panic about the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as they can still deposit these notes into their account.

He said however that reconfiguration of the ATMs to be able to dispense new Rs 500 note and Rs 2,000 note cannot happen immediately and will take some time.

The Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes account for over 86 per cent of the total Rs 16.42 lakh crore value of bank notes in circulation as of March 31, 2016, according to Reserve Bank's latest annual report.