During the RBI's bi-monthly monetary policy meeting on Thursday (8 June), Governor Shaktikanta Das appealed to citizens not to wait for the September 30th deadline for exchanging/ depositing ₹2,000 currency notes and added not to panic either. "Please avoid the last-minute rush in exchanging or depositing ₹2,000 notes. There is no shortfall in currency, we have ample notes for exchange. Don't panic, no rush, but don't keep it for the last days of September," RBI governor Das said on Thursday.
Further, Shaktikanta Das put rest to speculation and explicitly said that RBI has not considered withdrawing ₹500 notes or re-introducing notes in ₹1,000 denominations.
Last month, RBI decided to roll back ₹2,000 from the system, stating it was a routine "currency management exercise".
The country's central bank has proclaimed that the last date to exchange or deposit ₹2,000 banknotes is 30 September 2023. However, the notes will continue to be valid as legal tender after that date.
Nearly 50% of the total ₹2,000 notes, that is 1.80 lakh crore banknotes have been deposited in the banks out of the total 3.62 lakh crore notes, as of March 31, 2023, the RBI Governor said in a media statement on Thursday.
Roughly around 85% of total notes of ₹2,000 have come back to the banks as deposits and the rest are for exchange, Governor Das added.
Yesterday a Reuters report revealed that about three-fourths of Indians are choosing to deposit the ₹2,00 notes into bank accounts rather than exchanging them for small denominations.
India's largest public lender the State Bank of India (SBI) has received about ₹170 billion in value terms in the first week since 23 May--the day when the process to exchange/deposit the denomination began.
An SBI official claimed that 140 billion or 82% was deposited into the account while the rest was exchanged.
Besides, officials from the Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, and Bank of India also said 80%-90% of the notes were deposited.
Kotak Mahindra Bank received more than ₹30 billion of ₹2,000 banknotes till 30 May.
The RBI has declared that exchange is only permitted up to ₹20,000 per turn while there is no limit on depositing the notes.
According to the RBI data, the inflow is likely to push up bank deposit growth from the current 10.9% and reduce the currency in circulation (CIC), which dropped to ₹365 billion in the week ending 26 May.
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