Banks to accept pre-2005 notes in deposits, says RBI

Mumbai, Dec 20 : The Reserve Bank of India on Monday asked banks to accept pre-2005 notes in deposits after complaints were received that commercial banks were refusing to accept these.

"Bank should accept deposits of pre-2005 banknotes in the denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 but not reissue these," RBI said in a statement here.

After demonetisation on November 8, complaints were being received from the people that commercial banks were refusing to take pre-2005 notes as deposits.

The RBI further clarified that according to its instructions issued on June 30, the facility for the members of public to exchange pre-2005 banknotes was available from July 1 onwards only at the some offices of the Reserve Bank.

"However, it did not imply that banks cannot accept deposits of pre-2005 banknotes for crediting to the customers' accounts," it said.

The exchange facility for pre-2005 banknotes is available at Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Belapur, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Patna, Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi offices of the Reserve Bank.