Banks will remain open on weekend to exchange old notes

Banks will remain open on coming Saturday and Sunday to deal with the rush of people expected to queue up at branches to exchange now-invalid currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.

For public convenience, banks will remain open on coming Saturday and Sunday, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das tweeted.
CLICK HERE FOR RBI NOTIFICATION

As per the normal schedule, the coming Saturday being the second would have been a holiday, but keeping in view the expected rush at the branches, it was decided otherwise.

There are about 149 scheduled commercial banks, including 56 regional rural banks, with branch network of about 1.30 lakh across the country. Besides, the co-operative banks have also been asked to take deposit and exchange the old with the new one.

It is, however, not clear whether post offices would be open or not on the weekend. There are about 1.25 lakh post offices across the country.

At the same time, the government and Reserve Bank of India are yet to take a call on keeping banks open on Monday, November 14, which is a holiday.

‘In order to meet the anticipated heavy demand from members of the public to conduct their banking transactions, it has been decided that banks shall remain open for public transactions on Saturday, November 12, and Sunday, November 13, 2016,’ the RBI said in a statement.

Banks are advised to keep all their branches open on November 12 and 13, 2016, as regular working days for transacting all business, it said.

RBI also asked banks to give due publicity to the availability of banking services on these days.