RBI to accept pre-2005 banknotes from today

TIL Desk/Business/Mumbai-The Reserve Bank will accept pre-2005 banknotes only at its select branches from today as majority of the old series banknotes have been withdrawn. RBI is pulling out the pre-2005 banknotes because of fewer security features compared to banknotes printed after 2005.

The central bank said it has observed that a major portion of the pre-2005 banknotes have been withdrawn from circulation and only a small percentage of these notes remains in circulation. “On a review, therefore, the Reserve Bank has decided that from July 1, 2016 the facility of exchanging the pre-2005 banknotes will be available only at the select offices of the Reserve Bank,” it said in a release.

The branches are: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Belapur, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Patna, Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi.  Reserve Bank in December 2015 had set June 30, 2016 as the last date for public to exchange pre-2005 banknotes at the identified bank branches and Issue Offices of the Reserve Bank.