KARACHI, Nov 2: Thousands of depositors were deprived of utilizing their money by the banks as most of the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) remained out of cash at least for one week before Eid.

People were found cursing the ‘high-tech’ banking which was meant to facilitate the customers, but it was highly disappointing and discouraging for the users.

The banking hours were reduced in Ramazan and subsequently the load increased on ATMs but it was found that banks were running short of liquidity and they mostly kept their ATMs off.

It was found that ATMs of Muslim Commercial Bank, which has the largest network in the country, remained most of the time out of order or out of cash in the last week of Ramazan. People kept running from Gulshan-e-Iqbal to Tower, the mother street of banking industry, but failed to withdraw cash.

“I am coming from Hassan Square (Gulshan) after having attempted four MCB’s ATMs but they are all out of order,” said Rashid, an ATM cardholder at Water pump, F.B Area. He failed to withdraw cash even from Water Pump as both ATMs were out of cash at 12:30p.m. on Wednesday.

AT 1.30p.m. people were standing in a long queue at MCB’s Bahadurabad branch to withdraw cash but the machine went out of cash.

“I have been trying for three days but the machine doest not accept card as the slot is closed,” said Saleem at Bahadurabad. It was observed that banks managed to close the slot of ATM, which disallows inserting of card into the machine, although it remains on.

Depositors and ATM cardholders accused banks of depriving them of their own money especially at the time when they needed it badly for Eid shopping. The banks have been borrowing from the State Bank continuously but the liquidity crunch could not be softened.

On Wednesday banks borrowed Rs7 billion from the State Bank while on Tuesday they borrowed Rs10 billion while the central bank also injected Rs5 billion into the banking system the same day.

It was surprising that banks took long positions while investing in the treasury bills or making advances without considering the needs of the real owners of the money — the depositors. The State Bank which is the regulator of all banks and praises the performance of banks never took serious note of this illegal and immoral attitude.

“I leave my office at 3p.m. but I could not withdraw from ATMs as they were always out of cash,” said Arsalan, a hardware engineer. The highly mismanaged technology proved extremely discouraging for the people who have started depending on the ATMs.

ATMs machines are already deteriorating due to poor maintenance by the banks. Most of the machines are found out of function with a bright word “sorry” on the screens.

However, the month of Ramazan proved highly disgusting for a large number of people who are using ATM cards. People ran pillar to post to withdraw cash from ATMs but failed. The dependence on ATMs has increased substantially during the last two years as the technology promises to provide cash availability for 24 hours but it never happened.

The State Bank which encouraged banks and stressed on them to switch over the electronic banking could not manage to check the outcome of the adoption of this new technology.

It was also observed that if an ATM cardholder of m-Net tries to withdraw from other switch 1-Net, most of the time machine does not provide cash while it balances shows that cash was detected. It takes at least three months and lot of visits to relevant banks to get back the lost money.

“This has been happening for more than a year and millions of rupees are stuck-up but no solution was found to resolve the problems,” said a banker.