A day after the Confederation of ATM Industry (CATMi) warned of shutting down over 1.13 lakh ATMs by March 2019, public lender Punjab National Bank has assured on non-closure of its ATMs and no hike in the ATM usage charges.
However, others lenders are yet to issue an official statement.
“PNB would like to clarify that it has no major plans to reduce ATMs by March 31 2019,” said the bank in its official statement.
This announcement has also ended the speculations that suggested the banks would ultimately inflate the charges for the customers.
The CATMi had recently made an announcement that the regulatory landscape was making it difficult to operate ATMs and this might lead to the closure of half of the total 2.38 lakh machines in the country.
“A large number of ATMs in non-urban locations may be shut down due to unviability of operations. If this happens, the financial inclusion programme would be severely impacted as millions of beneficiaries under the government’s Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana scheme, who withdraw cash from ATMs, may find their neighbourhood ATMs shut. This may result in long queues and chaos similar to what the country witnessed when ATMs were not dispensing cash post demonetisation,” the industry body said.
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