UPI-making Your Smartphone Into a Bank

Sunday is the day in which I catch up with all my arrears of sleep during the week and for me, there is nothing as irritating as being woken up by a phone call that too as early as 6.15 am on a Sunday morning.

But, two weeks back, this is precisely what had happened. Normally such calls are from friends who want some clarifications or help on various banking aspects. But, this time, to my surprise, it was a senior peer banker who wanted to know what the arrangements are made by my bank for cash filling in ATMs during long holidays or weekends. During the month of September 2016, all the banks in Kerala were closed continuously for nearly 5 days on account of Onam and other holidays. Though most banks had filled their ATMs with cash on Friday evening the cash withdrawals at ATMs had been so huge on Saturday itself that most of the ATMs were out of cash by Saturday evening itself. Kerala Government stepped in through State Level Bankers Committee and instructed banks to make arrangements for loading of cash in ATMs by Monday. And, this was the trigger for me getting the call. Though very irritated on receiving a call so early on a Sunday morning, I became philosophical and recited the words of Mahatma Gandhi “ The world is sufficient for everyone’s needs but not for anyone’s greed”. I added, “We all should learn from the Japanese. When in a crisis and people anticipate the shortage of something the Japanese voluntarily restricts the storage and consumption to the barest minimum. Here, we do the opposite and unless and until such mentality changes whatever is done will only be temporary quick fixes and not permanent solutions”. Anticipating such a situation my bank had made elaborate arrangements on Friday itself, and thus I could continue my sleep very peacefully.