Here’s a tech solution to the killer queues at banks and ATMs in cash-starved India

Queues snaking from banks have been a common sight across India for weeks. Photo credit: Harsimran Julka.

My colleague in Bangalore, Neha, stood for hours at ATMs twice – and failed on both occasions to withdraw cash. Another colleague, Abhilash, was third in the queue after a four-hour wait when the ATM ran out of cash.

Neha and Abhilash are the lucky ones. There are reports of elderly people collapsing in queues. Some died with heart attacks. A woman suffocated to death in a crowded bank. Disturbing images in social media show police beating up people to keep them docile in queues.

Hundreds of millions of people have been queueing up first thing in the morning in front of banks and ATMs across the vast country ever since Indian prime minister Narendra Modi made the shock announcement on the evening of November 8 to ban high-denomination currency notes. These 500-rupee and 1000-rupee notes accounted for 80 percent of the cash in the country. So there’s a sudden vacuum for people requiring cash for everyday needs in a country where mom-and-pop stores and service providers are mostly not equipped to accept card payments.

Does this have to be such a painful and chaotic process in this age of mobile tech?

There’s also a low cap on the amount of cash that can be withdrawn each day – so even those who do make it to the head of the queue in time have to repeat that feat within days. Banks don’t have enough low denomination notes to meet the requirements, so they have to shut their counters and ATMs when they run out of cash. The new 2000-rupee and 500-rupee notes are also scarce.

Many, like me, are biding their time with online transactions. But eventually we will have to bite the bullet and stand in queue. Not only to get petty cash but also to deposit the old 500-rupee and 1000-rupee notes lying with us before December 31, after which they become junk.

Does this have to be such a painful and chaotic process in this age of mobile tech? The answer is a big ‘No.’ If only banks would use the available tech to ease the pain of their customers.

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