Many bank branches are seeing unprecedented queues of people waiting to exchange their currency notes on Day 1 of the program, despite clear instructions that they can do so at any time over the next 50 days.
Many people are waiting outside bank branches worried that if they don’t exchange their old notes today, it will become totally useless.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley once again reminder people that they don’t have to exchange it today itself and can do so any time this month or the next.
The RBI’s instructions on this matter was also clear. “The scheme closes on 30th December 2016. The OHD banknotes can be exchanged at branches of commercial banks, Regional Rural Banks, Urban Cooperative banks, State Cooperative Banks and RBI till 30th December 2016,” it had said.
Part of the reason for the confusion may be misinformation and conflicting information spread on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.
DEPOSIT VS EXCHANGE
The rush of people at the banks to deposit their old notes is causing inconvenience to those who have come to exchange their notes to meet urgent requirements.
If you have urgent need for new notes, you have three options. First, you may get your old notes exchanged for new ones, but only for up to Rs 4,000 per individual. The individual does not need to have a bank account. It is not clear whether you can get 4,000 every day or only once in your life time. Since the word ‘per day’ is not mentioned, we believe you can only exercise this once.
Secondly, you can deposit your old notes in your bank account and withdraw the same using a cheque or a pay-in slip.
There is no limit to how much you can deposit, but there is a limit on how much you can withdraw till Nov 24th.The limit on cheque or pay-in-slip withdrawal is Rs 10,000 per day or Rs 20,000 for a week, whichever applies.
Finally, you can also use your ATM card to withdraw funds at the rate of Rs 2,000 per day per card, everyday. From 19th Nov (next Saturday), you can withdraw at the rate of Rs 4,000 per day. However, the ATM withdrawals will count against your branch withdrawals as well. In other words, if you’ve already withdrawn Rs 2,000 from an account using an ATM, you can only get 8,000 from the same account using a pay-in slip or cheque.
If you have multiple bank accounts in your family, you can use netbanking or UPI apps to transfer your funds from one account to all the other accounts in the family. This way, you can withdraw money separately from each account — both from ATMs and using pay-in slips at the branch.
In other words, if you have three members in your family (with or without bank accounts) and five bank accounts (ATM cards) in the family, you can withdraw a total cash of Rs 1.12 lakh in two days as follows:
| Cash exchange | 4000*3 | 12000 |
| ATM Day 1 | 2000*5 | 10000 |
| ATM Day 2 | 2000*5 | 10000 |
| Branch Day 1 | 8,000*5 | 40000 |
| Branch Day 2 | 8,000*5 | 40000 |
| Total after 2 days | 112000 |
RBI’s OFFICIAL GUIDE on how to exchange currency notes of 500, 1000
