Banks will have to extend working hours from Thursday to exchange notes

The Reserve Bank of India has directed both private and public sector banks to keep the counters open for extended hours, if necessary in order to meet the public demand for exchange of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.

"Bank branches will commence normal operations on November 10, 2016. Banks have to accord top priority to provide facility for exchanging / accepting deposits of Specified Bank Notes and open additional counters to meet the public demand and keep the counters open for extended ours, if necessary. Maximum staff should be deployed for this purpose. If necessary banks may consider hiring retired employees for a temporary period to take care of additional work load,"RBI said in its release.

Banks will remain closed on Wednesday in order to withdraw the existing notes from counters and ATMs. They would, in turn, “strive to restock ATMs at the earliest and make them operational. Government has given enough exemptions to ensure that urgent needs are met. We will work round the clock to ensure that customers have a smooth experience,” Bhattacharya said.

Top bankers said they would work round the clock to ensure that customers do not suffer and the situation is handled smoothly. Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairman of country’s largest lender State Bank of India said demonetisation of high value notes won’t be a problem as the bank has done it before.

ICICI Bank’s MD & CEO Chanda Kochhar said the move to junk the existing high value notes “is perhaps the most significant move ever taken to curtail the parallel economy,” and that this “will give a sharp boost to all formal channels of payment which in turn will help the formal economy to grow.”

According to basic calculations, with a daily limit of Rs 4,000 a day, a maximum of Rs 60,000 can be exchanged by a person, in 15 days from November 10 to November 24

From November 24 onwards, the exchange process will be eased for convenience, meaning the exchange limit will be increased.

There is no limit on deposits.