INDIA'S BANKNOTE WOES CONTINUE TO MOUNT

Aruna Desai has a problem with the thousands of Indian rupees she has with her in the U.S. -- she can't find a bank to exchange her funds and couldn't give the money away if she tried.

Since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed 500- and 1,000-rupee notes from circulation, currency exchange providers in the U.S. have been unable to take the outlawed bills. Some of the country's biggest banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc., work with vendors to provide rupees to clients and those vendors have made the bills unavailable, spokesmen for the banks said. Wells Fargo & Co. also said it can't supply rupees at this time, while Bank of America Corp. said it has never accepted the currency for exchange.

“If you have a euro, you can go to a bank and exchange it,” Desai, 76, of Cliffside Park, New Jersey, said in a telephone interview. “For an Indian rupee, I don't think there's any bank that does that here.”

Travelex Ltd., which operates more than 200 currency exchange stores in the U.S., said it's unable to accept the 500- and 1000-rupee bills from customers because it can't repatriate the cash in bulk under India's current rules, said Lucie Smith, a spokeswoman for the London-based company. Western Union Co., the world's largest money-transfer service, said for those locations facing a shortage of rupees, customers are able to receive checks or remittances to their bank accounts. “A lot of people are trying to give money to their friends to spend it, or else it will go to waste,” said Desai, who makes a yearly trip to India to work at a medical camp. If she can't find a place to exchange or use the bills, she'll “just have to throw it away.”

To read the complete article, see:
U.S. Banks Close Rupee Exchanges After Large Bills Ruled Illegal (www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-18/u-s-banks-close-rupee-exchanges-after-large-bills-ruled-illegal)

To ease the banknote chaos that has gripped the nation and reduce the huge queues at banks and ATMs, the Indian government on Friday told gas stations to start dispensing cash.

About 2,500 state-run gas stations across the country that have State Bank of India card swipe machines will permit people to withdraw up to 2,000 rupees a day using their debit cards.

The move was prompted as anger and frustration continue to grow since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on November 8 that all 500 rupee and 1,000 rupee banknotes were invalid, which wiped out 86% of the cash that was in circulation in the country.

To read the complete article, see:
Indian gas stations dispense cash to ease banknote crisis (www.atimes.com/article/indian-gas-stations-dispense-cash-ease-banknote-crisis/)

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
INDIA SCRAPS 500 AND 1,000 RUPEE BANKNOTES (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n46a38.html)
RUPEE BANKNOTE BAN CAUSES PANIC (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n46a39.html)
NEW INDIAN BANKNOTES PRINTED IN SECRET (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n46a40.html)

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