New Delhi: Concerned over the inconvenience caused to the public because of the non-availability of cash in ATMs, the Reserve Bank of India has decided to penalize banks for failure to timely replenish currency notes in such machines.

Beginning from October 1, 2021, cash-out at any ATM of more than 10 hours in a month will attract a flat penalty of Rs 10,000 per ATM. In case of White Label ATMs (WLAs), the penalty would be charged to the bank which is meeting the cash requirement of that particular WLA. The bank, may, at its discretion, recover the penalty from the WLA operator, reads an RBI notification. The notification added that the MDs and CEOs of all banks, the central bank has said that it has a mandate to issue banknotes and the banks are fulfilling this mandate by dispensing banknotes to the public through their wide network of branches and ATMs.

"In this connection, 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," it said.

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