Government scraps Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes!

[sgiitk]

@joslicx; The cash shortage has two origins: 1. Diversion of cash to the rural areas and, 2. 2. Workers being paid in cash get their salary between the 1st and 7th.

The situation regarding cashless (or rather nearly) working is also true in one part of the NCR as well. My son and daughter-in-law in Gurugram have drawn 2k twice from the ATMs in her hospital, and are quite Ok. Now they may need about 5-6k tomorrow to pay the lady who does the cleaaning, and the 'pocket money' to their maid. This lady gets her salary transferred to her Manipal account through NEFT.

This is not possible in Kanpur since we are in a heavily cash base economy. Only now the merchants are waking up to a card based scenario.

[sukhoi30]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

Only now the merchants are waking up to a card based scenario.

Have a chemist in my neighborhood. He always dealt in cash. After Nov 8th he applied for a card machine. The bank where he applied said there is request for more than 300 machines. It may take him more than month to get the machine. Now he is contemplating using mobile wallets. I think banks are flooded with card swipe requests. Big business for them from all quarters.

[Zappo]

Guys... let me share some thoughts. For all those clamoring for empty banks and available cash, remember that you are one amongst the billions of Indians who are doing exactly the same. If you do what all of them are doing then you will face the same scenario as them.

I changed the approach a little and it worked for me. May be it should for you as well. Look at it. First thing first. Deposit and Withdrawal are two different things. Do not try to mix them up. Remember, banks see a serpentine queue from the morning and runs out of all the cash by mid afternoon or at best by 2pm. Walk in sometime after 4pm. You will be amazed to find an empty bank. Deposit your old notes and come out in flat 10 minutes.

For withdrawal it is a little more tricky. Here are the approaches.

- Do you have an account with some uncommon MNC bank? Say SC? or HSBC? Speak to your RM and land up with a cheque book in hand on the discussed date. You should be able to get your cash within 30 minutes or less

- The same is also the case with SBI PBBs. If you have an account with any PBB life is a little simpler

- Find out whether any of your friends works in a big MNC (like Microsoft or CA or any such) that has more than 1 bank ATMs inside the campus. Ask one of your friends for help. Its much easier to get cash from the dedicated ATMs inside a closed campus

- Land up at one of the Big Bazar or any of the other bigger malls that have now started dispensing cash on a weekday after 12 pm. You will have rush but you may still be able to get it much more easily than at the banks

- Last option is if you are a heavyweight customer of any private bank like HDFC (Imperia customer) but are not able to get your way across. Write a stinker to their dedicated support address. Let them know that you are struggling for something as simple as withdrawing of some cash irrespective of all your attempts and you are now seriously pondering about moving your business to a bank that can provide you better service and there are a few available. You will be amazed at the hush hush way in which they will deal with it to pacify you quickly.

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by avisidhu

Wait, what? Besides the obvious question as to how its even possible, just want to know which class you are in now

I left school so long back sir But on a serious note, yes I am your average upper middle class techie guy!

Except for a small hitch; that was never the intended purpose in the first place! Everyone around me with large or small amount of money is now sitting pretty having 'managed' it all. In fact many people have slowly accumulated new currency now and are willing to exchange old notes, but unable to find anyone left behind.

We dont really know what all the purposes of this whole exercise are. For sure, some of them were spelt by the govt but they do not need to tell you all. There are always multiple strategic objectives for these kind of things. They didnt tell you this will help banks get much needed funds (they were crying for funds for quite some time so businesses were not getting money and this was affecting the economy. Now suddenly banks are flush with money!)

Personally I think its a very good move by the government. Yes it affects lot of people but I guess that should have been one of the objectives! You need that to change habits. Its the same with other things as well, say for example, quitting smoking. I remember my grandad was a smoker who lived in a village and there he always smoked hookah. Whenever he visited us in the city he would bring with himself packs of beedis (thats the rustic version of cigarette for those who do not know) as we did not have any hookah for him. One time when he was with us, my sister, who was really sick and tired of his smoking, just threw away all his packets of beedis! This was a big shock therapy for him! Sure, he was really miserable for a few days, and to his credit he did not buy another brand from the market (his local one was not available in our city). But after few days he moved on from smoking forever! This was a man who had smoked for better part of 70 years of his life at that time! He was quite happy later that he got rid of smoking.

All I can say is, people who resist change are really losers. Change brings opportunities, its for us to grab them.

[J.Ravi]

Over one lakh iPhones were bought with the demonetized notes and back-dated receipts in 3 days after Nov 8. http://www.business-standard.com/art...2900238_1.html

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by joslicx

We dont really know what all the purposes of this whole exercise are. For sure, some of them were spelt by the govt but they do not need to tell you all.

Why not? By what authority have they come into power to not be answerable to the same?

Originally Posted by joslicx

They didnt tell you this will help banks get much needed funds (they were crying for funds for quite some time so businesses were not getting money and this was affecting the economy. Now suddenly banks are flush with money!)

Why did they not have money?

Originally Posted by joslicx

All I can say is, people who resist change are really losers.

Thats nice.

[Puneet.S]

Rs. 500 notes to be accepted at Petrol pumps only till tomorrow midnight and all toll booths to start collecting toll from tomorrow - as opposed to the govt's earlier date of Dec. 15th.

The way they are haphazardly and arbitrarily changing their own decisions - i'd not be surprised if they refuse to stick to the promised date of Dec. 30th for depositing old notes at bank counters - it could be pre-poned at any moment.

Why? Because it is alleged that petrol pumps were being used to convert black money to white and it is reported that many bank officials are also indulging in similar malpractices.

[RGK]

Originally Posted by Puneet.S

Why? Because it is alleged that petrol pumps were being used to convert black money to white and it is reported that many bank officials are also indulging in similar malpractices.

I spoke to my friend who owns a petrol pump. He said, all the oil corporations have asked to submit their daily sales report from Nov 8th night along with the daily cash deposits done in their respective bank accounts.

So it is difficult for them to deposit extra black cash if collected from other sources as the daily sales vs daily cash deposit may not tally.

The pump owners have been instructed to have their CCTV setup in pucca condition and maintain the recordings from 8th Nov.

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by mayankk

Why not? By what authority have they come into power to not be answerable to the same?

That does not mean govt has to tell you everything! No govt in the world does that. Theres optics and messaging to commoners. Govt has to explain any question in the parliament though which is the right forum.

Why did they not have money?

In 2009, banks NPAs were about 64000 crores. When UPA2 term was over, the NPAs stood at 4.5 lakh crores!

Its a good thing Raghuram Rajan red flagged this and started the cleanup process. In that process lot more of these sins of the banks and politicians came out. Banks were simply not ready to lend money anymore as their own balance sheets were very bad as they had to report all their bad loans. This obviously hit all the promises of economic miracle of the current government.

[r_devakumar]

Originally Posted by Zappo

- Find out whether any of your friends works in a big MNC (like Microsoft or CA or any such) that has more than 1 bank ATMs inside the campus. Ask one of your friends for help. Its much easier to get cash from the dedicated ATMs inside a closed campus

I am working in one such company where we have 5 ATM machines within campus. But the bank is not able to supply enough cash, so mostly one or two ATM works part of the day. From day 1 to today, i am seeing not less than 50 people in the queue any given time. And y'day and today after the salary credit, it is 100+

[khoj]

500 denomination notes will now be accepted at fuel stations & ticket counters etc only until tomorrow i.e. 2nd December 2016 instead of 15th December.

[pratyush6]

Everyone wished there was slightly better preparedness for this. Not enough 500 rupee notes has proved to be the toughest thing. I am completely for this step but I truly wish our Govt. had done a bit more planning.
The stop gap measures in place and changes are hard to track if you are not constantly tracking it. I work and live in a place which has dedicated ATMs but they still run dry constantly and I hate standing in a line, everywhere. I had withdrawn around 2k from my apartment ATM once and it has helped me tide over. 2K notes are useless, and I don't understand why have them in the first place.

I wish the Govt. thought of a mobile ATM kind of a thing, where people just swipe their card and get money. A lot of trouble, for gains which might not prove to be significant enough perhaps. Still the right step though. We just need to grin and bear through it.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by joslicx

That does not mean govt has to tell you everything! No govt in the world does that. Theres optics and messaging to commoners. Govt has to explain any question in the parliament though which is the right forum.

No.
When you are taking money out of pockets, you have to. What the heck is a "commoner"?? People are not asking whether the nuclear codes are 6 or 8 digits, and whether they're based on the PMs favorite color.

Originally Posted by joslicx

Its a good thing Raghuram Rajan red flagged this and started the cleanup process. In that process lot more of these sins of the banks and politicians came out. Banks were simply not ready to lead money anymore as their own balance sheets were very bad as they had to report all their bad loans. This obviously hit all the promises of economic miracle of the current government.

Like so?

Is it fair, or even legal, to force deposits and manage NPAs?

[sukhoi30]

Originally Posted by joslicx

In 2009, banks NPAs were about 64000 crores. When UPA2 term was over, the NPAs stood at 4.5 lakh crores!

Its a good thing Raghuram Rajan red flagged this and started the cleanup process. In that process lot more of these sins of the banks and politicians came out. Banks were simply not ready to lend money anymore as their own balance sheets were very bad as they had to report all their bad loans. This obviously hit all the promises of economic miracle of the current government.

Besides that there were a lot of more mess left behind by the previous Govt. Everything cannot be made public as it could hamper the security of the country.

Read this interesting investigative report. You will understand how deep the mess was and still is. This Govt. is trying to clean it up one by one.

http://greatgameindia.com/secret-wor...ers-de-la-rue/

However there is a very critical aspect in the entire debate on this move that is being missed in all the confusion. It is a serious aspect which concerns the security of the entire nation. If not addressed now, it could lead to further acts of terrorism, espionage, drug trafficking etc. than we have seen thus far. It is to curb the financing of such activities by fake currency printed out of India that the Government of India has taken this brave and bold step. However the very critical point of concern that has been overlooked in this enthusiasm to root out Black Money is this. Are our new currency notes printed with the involvement of the same blacklisted companies that infact were the source of fake notes to Pakistan in the first place?

[binand]

Originally Posted by mayankk

Is it fair, or even legal, to force deposits and manage NPAs?

Why not? The alternative is for government to re-capitalize the banks, which will divert government funds away from whatever the intended purpose is.

One thing we should remember is that for banks, deposits are liabilities. Their assets are the loans they give out. So mobilizing so much deposit is detrimental to the banks' interests, unless they are able to lend the money thus raised. For that to happen, interest rates have to come down so that the cost of borrowing is lowered, thereby increasing demand for borrowed capital. I understand our RBI does monetary policy review every two months and the last one was in early October, so let us expect a positive announcement that logically follows from demonetization in the next week or so.

One more thing. Economic theory says that each individual divides their income into a consumption basket and an investment basket. Depending on the priorities of the economy on the date, it is within the powers of the government to make one of these baskets more appealing than the other, thereby forcing people to either consume (immediate stimulus) or invest (long-term growth).