Banks Have to Pay Heavy Fines If No Cash in ATMs: Check RBI’s New Guidelines

The Reserve Bank of India has on Tuesday has proposed penalties for banks and White Label ATM operators if their ATMs are found to be lying without replenishment for more than ten hours, starting October 1, 2021.

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“A review of downtime of ATMs due to cash-outs was undertaken and it was observed that ATM operations affected by cash-outs lead to non-availability of cash and cause avoidable inconvenience to the members of the public,” RBI said in a statement. In what comes as a big relief to consumers in need of cash from ATMs, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday decided to levy monetary charges on ATMs that run out of cash, starting 1 October, 2021.

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“A review of downtime of ATMs due to cash-outs was undertaken and it was observed that ATM operations affected by cash-outs lead to non-availability of cash and cause avoidable inconvenience to the members of the public,” RBI said in a statement. It further stated, “Therefore, been decided that the banks/ White Label ATM Operators (WLAOs) shall strengthen their systems/ mechanisms to monitor availability of cash in ATMs and ensure timely replenishment to avoid cash-outs.

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Any non-compliance in this regard shall be viewed seriously and shall attract monetary penalty.” Launching the ‘Scheme of Penalty for non-replenishment of ATMs’, the central bank said that a penalty of ₹10,000 per ATM will be levied in the event of a cash-out situation for more than 10 hours in a month. “In the case of white label ATMs, the penalty would be charged to the bank which is meeting the cash requirement of that particular white label ATM.

The bank, may, at its discretion, recover the penalty from the white label ATM operator”, RBI said. RBI further said that banks shall submit a system-generated statement on downtime of ATMs due to non- replenishment of cash to the ‘Issue Department’ of RBI under whose jurisdiction these ATMs are located.

In case of WLAOs, RBI stated that the banks which are meeting their cash requirement shall furnish a separate statement on behalf of WLAOs on cash-out of such ATMs due to non-replenishment of cash. Such statements shall be submitted for every month within five days of the following month i.e., first such statement for the month of October 2021 shall be submitted on or before November 05, 2021 to the Issue Department concerned.

“Appeal against the decision of the Competent Authority, if required, may be made by the banks/ WLAOs to the Regional Director/Officer-in-Charge of the Regional Office concerned, within one month from the date of imposition of penalty. As the intention of the Scheme is to ensure replenishment of ATMs in time, appeals would be considered only in cases of genuine reasons beyond the control of bank/ WLAOs such as, imposition of lockdown by the State/ Administrative authorities, strike, etc,” the central bank further stated.