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NEW DELHI. — Nearly half of the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) will be shut by the end of March 2019 due to unviability of operations, warned the Confederation of ATM Industry (CATMi) on Wednesday.

Currently, India has around 238,000 ATMs out of which around 113,000 ATMs, including 100,000 off-site and more than 13,000 white label ATMs, are expected to down their shutters by the end of this financial year, i.e. March 2019.

It is believed that the government of India’s policy of digitisation will be hit hard in the event of shutting down of 50 percent of the ATMs, even as both the urban and rural populations will have to suffer due to less availability of cash.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had encouraged cashless transactions two years ago when he announced demonetisation of higher currency notes of 500 and 1,000 denominations, in an attempt to check corrupt and illegal cash transactions.

Local media reports quoted CATMi Director V. Balasubramanian saying that it was becoming more and more unviable to run the ATMs.

He said the CATMi move is forced on account of recent regulatory guidelines for ATMs hardware and software upgrades, recent mandates on cash management standards and the Cassette Swap method of loading cash, entailing huge investments by the industry.

“This would severely impact millions of beneficiaries under the Prime Minster scheme who withdraw subsidies in form of cash through ATMs, besides urban centres, resulting in snaky queues and chaos akin to post-demonetisation,” added Balasubramanian.  – Xinhua