Indians given a week more to find 140b rupees worth of banknotes before withdrawal

INDIA’S central bank on Saturday (Sep 30) extended a deadline to return the country’s highest value banknotes by another week, after billions of rupees’ worth remained in circulation.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ordered the withdrawal of the 2,000-rupee note on May 19, giving people until the end of September to exchange or deposit 3.56 trillion rupees (S$58.5 billion) at banks across the country. But as at Friday, notes worth 140 billion rupees remained unaccounted for, the central bank said in a statement on its website.

“As the period specified for the withdrawal process has come to an end, and based on a review, it has been decided to extend the current arrangement for deposit or exchange of 2000 banknotes until Oct 7, 2023,” the RBI said. 

From Oct 8, banks will not accept these notes any more, but they can be exchanged, up to a maximum 10 notes or 20,000 rupees at a time, at 19 RBI issue offices. People can also return the notes at the RBI offices, “for credit to their bank accounts in India for any amount”.

The highest denomination note was introduced in November 2016 to quickly remonetise the economy after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s shock decision to remove 1,000 and 500 rupee notes as legal tender overnight. In its May notice, the RBI said the notes had served their purpose and must be withdrawn as per its “clean note policy” to replace soiled bills every four to five years. BLOOMBERG