The Reserve Bank of India introduced the withdrawal of ₹2,000 foreign money notes from circulation.
| Photo Credit: M.A. Sriram
In a sudden volte face following an enormous public outcry, the State Bank of India — the nation’s largest financial institution — on Sunday withdrew its determination on the necessary filling of a slip for change of ₹2,000 financial institution notes at its branches.
“In partial modification of instructions, it has been decided that the facility of exchange of ₹2,000 denomination bank notes to all members of the public upto limit of ₹20,000 at a time will be allowed without obtaining any requisition slip as per the format attached in Annuxure III,” stated a letter issued by SBI Chief General Manager (Operations) S. Muralidharan.
“Further, no identity proof is required to be submitted by the tenderer at the time of exchange,” the letter issued to SBI branches stated. “Hence, Annexure III which is attached to E-Circular dated 19.05.2023 stands withdrawn immediately. There is no change in other instruments given in the E-Circular,” it added.
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KYC norms
On Friday, the identical SBI workplace had issued a letter saying, “Deposit of ₹2,000 banknotes into accounts maintained with our bank will be allowed in the usual manner, that is, without restrictions and subject to compliance with extant Know Your Customer (KYC) norms and other applicable Statutory requirements.” SBI’s KYC norms require a requisition slip and id proofs to be submitted.
“The branches are also advised to comply with Cash Transaction Reporting (CT) and Suspicious Transaction Reporting (STR) requirements, where applicable,” it had said. There shall not be any restrict on the amount and worth of the ₹2,000 denomination notes to be credited into the account maintained with the financial institution, it had added.
‘Not an RBI directive’
It is learnt that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had not issued any such directions to banks to gather id proofs of tenderers swapping the ₹2,000 financial institution notes, and the SBI had issued the directive by itself. Sources additionally say that the situation had been withdrawn following the intervention of the Finance Ministry after the general public hue and cry.
As different banks from each the private and non-private sector usually observe the SBI’s lead in such issues, it’s probably that no different financial institution will ask for any slip or proofs to be furnished in the course of the change of notes which can begin from Tuesday.
