US banks close rupee exchanges after large bills ruled illegal

Aruna Desai has a problem with the thousands of Indian rupees she has with her in the US — she can’t find a bank to exchange her funds and couldn’t give the money away if she tried.

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed Rs 500- and Rs 1,000 notes from the circulation, currency exchange providers in the US have been unable to take the outlawed bills. Some of the country’s biggest banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc, work with vendors to provide rupees to clients and those vendors have made the bills unavailable, spokesmen for the banks