Recalibrating ATMs to take more than a week, say bankers

Bankers said work on recalibration of ATMs for new currency notes had begun but it would take more than a week to cover a substantial part of the network.

Cash management companies reported filling up ATMs had been affected because bank staff were under pressure at branches. It is taking far longer to get money for loading and carrying to ATMs. Only one-third of the usual number of ATMs had been filled in last two days.

An executive with a company manufacturing ATMs said technical changes for recalibration involved software as well as hardware work. More than 1,000 professionals are on the job. 

Some banks have intensified use of micro-ATMs in remote areas. IDFC Bank has Aadhaar-enabled interoperable micro-ATMs at 1,000 unbanked locations in kirana stores, chemist shops and panchayat offices. 

Long queues at bank branches and ATMs were reported across the country on Monday. This deterred many from visiting branches and ATMs and they chose to use online payments and point-of-sale machines.

An ICICI Bank spokesperson said debit card transactions had shot up by 100 per cent over the last seven days and credit card transactions were up nearly 40 per cent.

On November 12, point-of-sale and e-commerce transactions processed using ICICI Bank debit cards were significantly higher than 1 million. This is a 70% increase over regular volumes.

Deepak Chandnani, CEO, South Asia and Middle East, Worldline, an electronic payment monitoring company, said the volume of card transactions at points of sale had climbed from about 4 million a day to 10 million.