Demonetisation: ATM operations will stablise this week, says ATM service provider FSS

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Availability of currency in ATMs to improve by end of this week since the new Rs 500 notes will be filled in to the machines by then, according to Azim Premji-backed Financial Software and Systems (FSS), the largest ATM service provider in the country. 

The company managed Bank Note Acceptor (BNAs) have also activated to accept deposits, which will ease the situation.

FSS is a leader in Payments Technology and it manage around 40,000 ATMs for Public and Private sector banks across the country. Across the country there are around 2.25 lakh ATMs

Nagaraj Mylandla, managing director, FSS said that already they have received the specs for the new Rs 500 and FSS managed ATM cassettes are being configured now for Rs 500 notes.

ATMs are getting stabilised and by the end of this week once Rs 500 notes comes into the system, ATM operations will be stabilised, said Mylandla.

He added, ATM transactions in FSS managed ATMs dipped by around 35 per cent, while cash evacuated as on date was Rs 4,000 crore, cash loaded in ATMs as on date was Rs 1,100 crore and cash dispensed through ATMs was Rs 900 crore.

"We have all systems and logistics support to fill the ATMs, but the problem is availability of Rs 100 notes," said Mylandla. He added, that after Rs 2,000 notes came on stream the refilling has increased, but again only 10 per cent of the ATMs are being refilled. Only 10 per cent ATMs are calibrated till now for Rs 2,000 notes and it will take a week to complete.

FSS said that all the 5000 BNAs, which FSS is managing, are being activated now to accept cash.

He added, FSS reported 113 per cent growth in debt card POS transactions have more than doubled, while through payment gateway total transactions processed on an average per days rose by 22 per cent from November 9.

Surge in volume was mainly in shopping portals, cabs, online food merchants category, primarily on account of merchants discouraging the CoD payment model.

Approximate average ticket size has gone up Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 for cabs, Rs 4,000 to Rs 6,000 for shopping portals and Rs 300 to Rs 500 for wallets.

Through mobile banking the transactions rose by 16 per cent.

Aadhar Enabled Payment services FSS observed almost 100 per cent transactions drops on 9th and 10th November. After deploying changes as per regulator and bank instruction, micro ATMs began functioning from November 11 and transactions are still nowhere close to the average transactions being processed by FSS, now it is decreased by 50 per cent.