Public Sector Banks Do Not Plan On Shutting Any ATMs: Govt
Public Sector Banks (PSBs) are not planning on shutting down their ATMs said Shiv Pratap Shukla, the Minister of State for Finance as he informed the Parliament.
The statement comes after a recent warning given by the Confederation of ATM Industry (CATMi) that close to half of India's 2.38 lakh machines run the risk of shutting down by March 2019 as maintaining all the ATMs will not be financially viable after RBI's changes in regulatory compliance. The union said that the new regulations will raise costs and cause a stagnant drop in revenues.
In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Shukla said that 2.21 lakh ATMs were deployed by scheduled commercial banks, small finance banks and white label ATMs operators as of 30 September. He further said that besides ATMs, banking services are also being provided across the country through bank branches, inter-operable business correspondents with Micro ATMs, etc and through digital mediums.
Replying to another question, Shukla said the government announced recapitalisation of PSBs to the tune of Rs 2.11 lakh crore in October 2017, through infusion of capital by the government and raising of capital by banks from the markets. "Rs 88,139 crore was infused by the government in PSBs during financial year 2017-18 after the recapitalisation announcement and provision of Rs 65,000 crore has been made in the budget for the current financial year for infusion," he said.