Indian banks gear up for pre-2005 note exchange rush

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mojo

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Banks are gearing up to meet the expected customer rush for exchanging currencies after the Reserve Bank's decision to phase out notes issued prior to 2005.

"There will be some pressure, but we are confident that we will handle it. We have cash depositing machines in large numbers which will help ease pressure. By end of February, we will around have 1,000 cash depositing machines," State Bank of India Deputy Managing Director P K Malhotra told PTI.

This is a good initiative as it will help remove fake currency which are in circulation, he said, adding that notes which are printed after 2005 have more security features.

According to Oriental Bank of Commerce CMD S L Bansal, the bank will adhere to all the directions of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regarding withdrawal of notes.

"I don't feel there would be a great rush for exchange of notes because most of such currency would be out of system," he said, adding that generally notes have shelf life of 10 years only.

A senior official of Punjab National Bank said their branches are fully geared up to meet the rush for currency exchange.

The Reserve Bank on January 22 decided to withdraw all currency notes issued prior to 2005, including Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, after March 31 in a move apparently aimed at curbing black money and fake currencies.

The public are required to approach banks for exchanging these notes.

The RBI had also said the volume of such notes that were being withdrawn from circulation was not significant.

The removal of older currency notes from circulation is a standard international practice, RBI had said.

From July 1, 2014, persons seeking exchange of more than 10 pieces of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will have to furnish proof of identity and residence to the bank.

The notes printed prior to 2005 will continue to be legal tender even after July 1. Any number of these old series notes can be exchanged by people at bank branches where they have accounts, RBI had said.

As per RBI data, 7,351 crore pieces of currency notes were in circulation on March 31,

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I think the 500 and 1000 Rs notes should be decommissioned entirely. I had read somewhere that this can also reduce black money. Not that it will stop.
Wonder why many (most ?) countries do not have currency notes greater than 100 denomination, while in our great nation, where 1000 Rs note wasn't in circulation for some time, government or RBI or whatever decided to reintroduce them.
At least from personal experience i haven't seen a greater than 100$ canadian or US dollar or more than 100 RMB Chinese note.
 
I think the 500 and 1000 Rs notes should be decommissioned entirely. I had read somewhere that this can also reduce black money. Not that it will stop.
Wonder why many (most ?) countries do not have currency notes greater than 100 denomination, while in our great nation, where 1000 Rs note wasn't in circulation for some time, government or RBI or whatever decided to reintroduce them.
At least from personal experience i haven't seen a greater than 100$ canadian or US dollar or more than 100 RMB Chinese note.

I guess that has something to do with the fact that in US (from my exp.) everybody uses credit cards for every thing. In India such cards aren't in use so much. When I was there and I went to a store to buy a cellphone for Rs 15k - the shopkeeper said if I paid by card, he would charge x% extra - so I had to withdraw cash and lump it on his desk.

Besides, in India, 10k is not a lot of money and you can't afford to stick on to notes of smaller denomination when people need cash in such amounts!
 
I think the 500 and 1000 Rs notes should be decommissioned entirely. I had read somewhere that this can also reduce black money. Not that it will stop.
Wonder why many (most ?) countries do not have currency notes greater than 100 denomination, while in our great nation, where 1000 Rs note wasn't in circulation for some time, government or RBI or whatever decided to reintroduce them.
At least from personal experience i haven't seen a greater than 100$ canadian or US dollar or more than 100 RMB Chinese note.

By this theory, what will Japanese do? Just imagine how many 100 yen notes will they carry to buy a mobile phone of 400 dollars. :) I think they have 10000 yen note.

And as you know better, if you think 100 dollar note is sufficient, we should have a 5000 rupees note to reach close to its value.

Thai bhat also has 1000 and 500 bhat notes.

So it has to do with value of the currency. Maximum 100 unit note won't work for every currency.
 
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I think the 500 and 1000 Rs notes should be decommissioned entirely. I had read somewhere that this can also reduce black money. Not that it will stop.
Wonder why many (most ?) countries do not have currency notes greater than 100 denomination, while in our great nation, where 1000 Rs note wasn't in circulation for some time, government or RBI or whatever decided to reintroduce them.
At least from personal experience i haven't seen a greater than 100$ canadian or US dollar or more than 100 RMB Chinese note.

DAT LOGIC

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Actually the reason behind this idea is that if there are only small notes, it will be difficult to hide and use black money. But that idea only works if it becomes easier to use plastic money, which frankly speaking is a lot easier these days and if necessary steps are taken, should be quite easy to implement because basic infrastructure is already in place. All that is needed is penetration so that it becomes as easy as taking payment in cash and then people who are honest businessman will prefer taking payment via card rather than cash. The fees should be reduced and payments should be processed faster so that a seller doesn't feel constricted to use a card as a means of taking payment.
 
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You seriously think that people with large amounts of black money keep them under their mattress, in bundles of 500/1000 notes? That only works in movies. Most of the black money has been diverted into gold/dollars/real estate.
 
DAT LOGIC
he did not articulate his point well that is all.
but limiting high value currency is one of the effective methods to reduce black money circulation and transaction. several NGOs are urging the govt to do the same. this is also one of the methods that might feature in BJP manifesto along with income tax abolition and introduction of banking transaction tax.

You seriously think that people with large amounts of black money keep them under their mattress, in bundles of 500/1000 notes? That only works in movies. Most of the black money has been diverted into gold/dollars/real estate.
you do realise those transactions must have happened with cash? and just becos it has happened why it should not be prevented from now on?
the primary goal of withdrawing high value currency is to make it difficult to carry lot of money for bribing or making high value transactions in cash (black).


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You seriously think that people with large amounts of black money keep them under their mattress, in bundles of 500/1000 notes? That only works in movies. Most of the black money has been diverted into gold/dollars/real estate.

That might be true for people who deal in thousands of crores. However this step will majorly prevent these low level dealings of a few lakhs that is very commonplace in India. Think of how difficult it will be to take/give a bribe of 5L when the highest denomination is just Rs. 10/50/100.
The common man is more troubled by this low level corruption. The big deals in which payments go straight to Swiss bank accounts etc. , we only come to know about via investigative journalism and isn't something that a normal person is more worried about.
 
Yes i basically meant about "carrying" large amount of cash only. Today one can easily carry 10 notes of 1000 Rs and you have 10K in your pocket that you may not even notice but if you have max 100 Rs note then you need to have a bundle of 100 notes to make 10K INR.
This is the logic behind reducing the denominations.
People like us shouldn't really have a problem with no 500/1000 Rs notes.
I am pretty sure no government in this country will enforce this ever. Their own interests are getting crippled if they implement this.
I still do not understand the logic behind introducing the 1000 Rs note when it was already out of circulation. May be for personal interest (yeah conspiracy theory :P )
[OT] Infact personally i withdraw 400 Rs per transaction to avoid getting a 500/1000 Rs from the ATM. This is just because many small kirana stores and all here "do natak" when i give bigger note and always want change. [/OT]
 
@raksrules, the lower denomination notes are costlier to print compared to higher denomination notes with new the new anti counterfeiting marks in place. It doesn't make sense to print 10's, 20's, 50's & 100's if you make loss just by printing them.
That's the reason many of the old notes (Re1-10) have been turned into coins since its easier & cost effective in long run to mint coins than to print paper every year.
 
Can you guys please make clear distinction between black money and fake money?.

Black money is not always fake money.
 
I am pretty sure no government in this country will enforce this ever. Their own interests are getting crippled if they implement this.
Because its impractical to do so.

If you take out the big notes, black moves to the smaller notes. So what have you achieved in the end ?

Just more inconvenience for the common man.
 
Because its impractical to do so.

If you take out the big notes, black moves to the smaller notes. So what have you achieved in the end ?

Just more inconvenience for the common man.

Its not just about withdrawing big notes, all transactions about a certain limit (say Rs 300) should be only allowed via debit/credit cards.
This will help as black money will automatically become useless.
 
This will help as black money will automatically become useless.
<sigh>

No it will not become useless. It will continue in other ways.

So tell me what have you achieved ?

Does anyone think this decision was brought on by the upcoming elections. Because that is the prime time when money needs to be moved. What is referred to as black money is what our democracy runs on. More people need to realise that.
 
That does not make it right. The aim is to make buying/selling with cash a PITA. It won't trouble normal people like you or me because we already prefer using card over cash. For example I know that many businessman buy luxury cars second hand with cash and show a paltry value on the sale deed. Same happens with property purchases. One of my dad's clients was really troubled when trying to sell his house because everyone who wanted to buy wanted to pay half in cash and he being an honest man didn't know what to do.
Like I have said above this move will have more effect on corruption at the lower levels and that alone is worth something.
 
Can you guys please make clear distinction between black money and fake money?.

Black money is not always fake money.

We know. The whole thread has become OT and now we are discussing something completely different than what the OP is about.
 
All OP talks about is removing fake circulation. They want to remove everything pre-2005. Now is a good time. That's it.

Removing bigger notes from circulation needs better justifications than what's been offered here ie it will curb black money. Without seeing those reasons who is going to agree with it. Rs.1k notes are a recent introduction. Does anybody know why they were brought out. Will those now advocating their withdrawal charge the RBI with promoting corruption with their introduction ?

Of course not. This is symptomatic of so many ideas that stem from a quick fix mentality. They are not serious ideas.
 
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