The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will impose penalty on banks in case ATMs run out of cash effective 1 October.

"A review of downtime of ATMs due to cash-outs was undertaken and it was observed that ATM operations affected by cash-outs lead to non-availability of cash and cause avoidable inconvenience to the members of the public," RBI said in a statement.

The central bank will start imposing from 1 October a penalty of Rs 10,000 per ATM in the event of a cash-out situation for more than 10 hours in a month.

“In the case of white label ATMs, the penalty would be charged to the bank which is meeting the cash requirement of that particular white label ATM. The bank, may, at its discretion, recover the penalty from the white label ATM operator", RBI said.

RBI further said that banks shall submit a system-generated statement on downtime of ATMs due to non- replenishment of cash to the 'Issue Department' of RBI under whose jurisdiction these ATMs are located.

In case of white-label ATM operators, RBI stated that the banks which are meeting their cash requirement shall furnish a separate statement on cash-out of such ATMs due to non-replenishment of cash.

“Such statements shall be submitted for every month within five days of the following month i.e., first such statement for the month of October 2021 shall be submitted on or before November 05, 2021 to the Issue Department concerned,” RBI said.

"Appeal against the decision of the Competent Authority, if required, may be made by the banks/ WLAOs to the Regional Director/Officer-in-Charge of the Regional Office concerned, within one month from the date of imposition of penalty. As the intention of the Scheme is to ensure replenishment of ATMs in time, appeals would be considered only in cases of genuine reasons beyond the control of bank/ WLAOs such as, imposition of lockdown by the State/ Administrative authorities, strike, etc," RBI added.