Queues fade in Delhi, banks claim people moving to digital payments

With vanishing bank queues and increasing online transactions, bankers say most people are now switching to digital payments to overcome demonetisation troubles

Demonetisation blues are still not over but long queues at banks are hard to find. Though bankers were expecting a huge rush in the new year, they now say that an increasing number of people are switching to digital payment and are better prepared to beat the pay day pangs.

Shorter queues seen outside ATMs in Connaught Place on December 30. (Arun Sharma / HT FILE)

The great Indian jugaad has also been called into play. For instance, Ashish Vijay, a resident of Sarita Vihar, paid his maid’s salary by transferring ₹2,500 to the account of her landlord. “She has to give ₹5,000 as rent. I got the idea from a friend who did the same,” he said. Similarly, to overcome the crunch, Gunjan Vijay, a resident of Jasola, took cash from her relative, who runs an Aadhaar Crad enrolment centre, and returned it through an online bank transaction.

A senior official of Corporation bank in North Delhi said, “When demonetization was announced on November 8, several people had not even withdrawn their November salary. This led to long queues on pay days in December. “But the queues became unusually small in January. We were expecting some rush at least in the first week of the month. But Delhiites were prepared for the second pay day. It seems that an increasing number of people have switched to internet banking, e-wallet and other digital platforms.”

Bankers believe that thinner queues in the last two weeks of December could have also been because people were not left with much money as they had withdrawn in advance to meet the pay day rush.