Chennai banks follow RBI's latest diktat, but customers unhappy

TOI

CHENNAI: Several city banks are telling customers not to deposit more than Rs 5,000 in their accounts after the Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday said banks could accept any amount in deposits just once, conditionally.

Multiple deposits will not be allowed and anything above `5,000 will be subject to scrutiny by bank officials and fulfillment of mandatory KYC requirements, an RBI circular said. "Deposits of more than `5,000 of demonetised currency notes will be allowed only once, till December 30," it added. But many bank branches in the city on Tuesday stopped accepting all deposits above `5,000 and posted notices to this effect.

Customers are not amused. "The government told us not to rush, so we didn't. We thought we had time till December 30 to exchange and deposit notes.

On November 22, they stopped exchanges. Now, they are asking us why we delayed," said Sujatha Anand, an HDFC Bank customer. An ICICI Bank customer at Thirvuvanmiyur tweeted his problem to the bank's official handle and the bank tweeted back saying it would revert shortly.

A notice outside an SBI branch on Chamiers Road, Nandanam, said, "Old notes deposits above `5,000 will be accepted only once during the remaining pe riod till December 30,2016. A self-explanatory letter to be attached." Many bank officials said it would be very difficult to implement the RBI directive on deputing two officials to scrutinise deposits.