RBI suspends Rs 2,000 note exchange/deposit facility on April 1

The facility to exchange or deposit Rs 2,000 banknotes will not be available on Monday, April 1, 2024 due to operations associated with the annual closing of accounts, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Friday.

The facility will resume on Tuesday (April 2, 2024) at the 19 issue offices of the RBI, it added.

"The facility of exchange/deposit of Rs 2,000 banknotes will not be available on Monday, April 1, 2024 at the 19 issue offices of the Reserve Bank of India due to operations associated with the annual closing of accounts," it said.

On May 19, 2023, the RBI announced the withdrawal of Rs 2,000 denomination bank notes from circulation.

Nearly 97.62 per cent of the Rs 2,000 bank notes have returned to the banking system at the close of business on February 29, and only about Rs 8,470 crore worth of the withdrawn notes are still with the public.

People can deposit and/or exchange Rs 2,000 bank notes at the 19 RBI offices across the country.

People can also send Rs 2,000 bank notes through India Post from any post office to any of the RBI issue offices for credit to their bank accounts in India.

Public and entities holding such notes were initially asked to either exchange or deposit them in bank accounts by September 30, 2023. The deadline was later extended to October 7, 2023. Deposit and exchange services at bank branches were discontinued on October 7.

Starting October 8, 2023, individuals have been provided with the choice of either exchanging the currency or having the equivalent sum credited to their bank accounts at the 19 offices of the RBI.

The 19 RBI offices depositing/exchanging the bank notes are in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Belapur, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Patna, and Thiruvananthapuram.

The Rs 2,000 bank notes were introduced in November 2016, following the demonetisation of the then Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 bank notes.