Bank customers in India will not be allowed to deposit more than Rs5,000 without first being questioned by bank officials, the government has announced.
The move, which was announced on Monday, is the latest in a string of changes to the rules governing the country’s demonetisation scheme since it was unveiled last month.
The finance ministry said customers would be allowed to make one payment of more than Rs5,000 ($75) before the December 30 deadline for exchanging money, but only after explaining why they had not done so in the previous six weeks. It said: “It is expected that, by now, most of the people will have deposited such old notes in their possession. Keeping this in view, and to reduce the queues in the banks, it has now been decided that amounts exceeding Rs5,000 in old notes can be deposited only once between now and 30th December, 2016.”
Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, first announced on November 8 that banknotes worth Rs500 and Rs1,000 — equivalent to $7.50 and $15 — would cease to be legal overnight. He told those holding the old notes that they had until the end of the year to deposit them into bank accounts and that deposits over Rs250,000 would be flagged to income tax officials as part of his push to tackle India’s pervasive black economy.
The Financial Times Limited
0 comments: