The Reserve Bank of India has proposed penalties for banks and White Label ATM operators if their ATMs are found to be lying without replenishment for more than ten hours to ensure customers and not inconvenienced.
From October 1, 2021, banks will have to pay a fine to the RBI if they are unable to monitor the availability of cash in ATMs and make sure there are no cash-out situations.
Penalty
According to the scheme, a penalty of Rs 10,000 per ATM will be levied in the event of a cash-out situation for more than 10 hours in a month.
In the case of white label ATMs, the penalty would be charged to the bank that is meeting the cash requirement of that particular machine. The bank will be allowed to recover the penalty amount from the white label ATM’s operator.
Working Mechanism
Banks have been asked to submit a system generated statement on downtime of ATMs due to non- replenishment of cash to the Issue Department of RBI.
Such statements shall be submitted for every month within five days of the following month i.e., first such statement for the month of October 2021 shall be submitted on or before November 05, 2021 to the Issue Department concerned.
The officer-in-charge at the ‘Issue Department’ of RBI’s regional office is the competent authority to levy the penalty on banks for non-availability of cash in ATMs in their jurisdiction.
Statment from RBI
“A review of downtime of ATMs due to cash-outs was undertaken and it was observed that ATM operations affected by cash-outs lead to non-availability of cash and cause avoidable inconvenience to the members of the public.”
“Therefore, been decided that the banks/ White Label ATM Operators (WLAOs) shall strengthen their systems/ mechanisms to monitor the availability of cash in ATMs and ensure timely replenishment to avoid cash-outs. Any non-compliance in this regard shall be viewed seriously and shall attract a monetary penalty.”
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