KARACHI, Feb 18: The cash facilitating machines of banks, ATMs, have developed multiple problems for the users instead of providing comfort to them.
It is surprising to note that while banks are advertising for latest products and earning billions as profits, they have totally ignored hundreds of thousands of customers, who find it easy to draw money through automated teller machines (ATMs).
The latest problem with the ATMs, which has become common across the country, is that they are supplying customers with the rejected notes. However, banks or the branch operating the ATM refuse to take these faulty notes back.
The rejected notes usually carry writings on notes, especially on the watermark in which the picture of the Quaid-e-Azam is hidden. These currency notes are officially not acceptable, even banks don’t accept them.
“Last week I withdrew Rs5,000 through ATMs of United Bank Limited in Saddar area in which a note of Rs1,000 denomination carried writings on the prohibited area,” said Mohammad Arif. He said the related UBL branch refused to take the note back saying that “we did not give this note.”
This is common and the people often quarrel with the banks’ staff but the latter does not take the responsibility. Arif said that he faced the same problem in Lahore.
This is important to note that the ATMs provide only Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes, which means once a customer finds a rejected note, he has to suffer a loss of Rs500 or Rs1,000, which is a heavy cost of using ATMs.
The machine users are also extremely disappointed with the growing incidence of non-functioning of ATMs in the city. It was observed that these often develop frequent problems like technical faults.
“But what will you say when machines show there is no cash?” asked Kaleem Abdi, another regular user of ATMs. It happens so regularly that many users of the machines have either stopped using them or reduced their dependence on the same.
The technology was introduced to facilitate the account holders and reduce the burden on banks but both the purposes remained far behind achieving the goal.
This is also an irony that no bank ever accepts that its ATM was not working or it was out of cash. The State Bank has been showing interest to correct the situation but it looks that the problem is too big for the SBP and apparently it decided to overlook the issue.
Banks have yet not come out with a system to feed their ATMs with cash when they close their working on weekly basis. They also never bother to put more cash in the machines in case of more than one holiday.
“The ATMs generally go empty just after the close of banks and only a few ATMs in the city provide cash till midnight. However, in case of two or three holidays one can never withdraw cash from the machines the second day,” said another customer, who still believes that the ATM is the best way for keeping less cash at home. He said the use of ATM is good for saving also as it encourages less spending.
