Dubai: Several hundred cash deposit machines operated by banks in the UAE are not accepting the new Dh500 note. A number of banks told Gulf News on Thursday that the problem could persist for several weeks before it is fully resolved.
“The Central Bank did not make available the note to us prior to its launch in the first week of December. Two weeks are not enough to reprogramme these machines,” said an official with a foreign bank.
A Central Bank official said banks were given sufficient notice of the launch of the note and they should have prepared the machines for the change. But bank officials said the reprogramming of the deposit machines is not a simple operation.
“It is not just scanning a new note into the machine. There are several levels of security procedures to be followed before a new denomination of note is made machine readable and made foolproof against fraud,” said the retail banking head of a leading local bank.
Many banks have put up notices in front of their ATM machines warning customers. Gulf News saw several customers were unable to make payments through deposit machines operated by RAKBank on King Faisal Street in Sharjah. Many of them had to exchange their new Dh500 bills for other denominations to make payment.
Inconvenience
“It is a big inconvenience. I had almost completed my credit card bill payment, but the machine returned two Dh500 bills. I had to go in search of other denominations and got pushed to the rear end of the queue,” said Jason Jacob, a Sharjah resident. An official from RAKBank’s King Faisal Street branch said the bank is fully aware of the issue and is working closely with suppliers of the ATM machines.
Cash deposit machines operated by etisalat are also facing problems.
Most banks said they are working with the machine suppliers to reprogramme the machines. However, no bank offered official comments or a deadline to complete the process.
