Six months after the demonetisation exercise got over, cash withdrawals from automated teller machines have been steadily rising, latest data released by Reserve Bank of India shows. At the same time, transactions through point-of-sale terminals have also risen, the data revealed.
According to the data, cash withdrawals from ATMs were more than ₹2.22 lakh crore in June 2017, as compared to ₹2.54 lakh crore recorded in October 2016 — the month before the high-value notes were withdrawn. The demonetisation exercise began in November and ended in December, when the deposit window was closed.
Cash withdrawals from ATMs halved in November 2016 as compared with October, coming down further in December.
‘Signs of normalisation’
Cash withdrawals are going up as more than 82% of the currency has been remonetised. RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya had recently said “the currency in circulation is showing early signs of normalisation.”
While cash withdrawals from ATMs have gone up, so have debit card transactions at the point of sale (PoS) terminals. RBI data showed that in June, debit card transactions in PoS terminals stood at ₹37,524 crore as compared with ₹21,941 crore in October. The number of debit cards in the system has also gone up in the period — from 739.28 million in October to 793.28 million in June.
Though PoS transactions have shown a somewhat steady rise recently, they are lower than the ₹58,031 crore attained in December.
Mobile banking transactions also received a boost following demonetisation, rising from ₹1.14 lakh crore in October to ₹2.13 lakh crore in May before coming down to ₹1.81 lakh crore in June.
Similarly, mobile wallet transactions increased from ₹3,385 crore to ₹5,350 crore between October and June, RBI data showed.
