BUUMBA CHIMBULU writes
THE public should not to deposit new bank notes on Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) until they are all adjusted, says Bankers Association of Zambia (BAZ) chief executive officer Leonard Mwanza.
Mr Mwanza explained that was why ATMs were rejecting deposits of the new notes introduced by the Bank of Zambia last year as they were not calibrated.
He said however that the calibration process of the ATMs was expected to be completed by next month.
Speaking in an interview in Lusaka, Mr Mwanza said the industry would alert the public once the process was complete so that customers could start depositing new bank notes on ATMs.
“Just to confirm that there are two types of machines on the market, you have the ATMs which dispense cash and then the hybrid type: they are able to dispense cash as well as to receive deposits.
“However from the time the new notes were issued, there is a process that the industry is carrying out, there is a project to recalibrate the templates so that when you deposit the new notes on those ATMs they are able to identify the security features on these new notes,” Mr Mwanza said.
Mr Mwanza had since urged the public to utilise other channels of depositing money such as cash expresses and branches for commercial banks.
He said the public should for now only deposit the old notes on ATMs.
“There has been an outcry from the general public that when they deposited the new notes on the deposit taking ATMs they were being rejected.
“From the project timeline, we expect that it should be completed by mid-March and we will inform the public and the ATMs will be in a position to receive both the new and old notes,” Mr Mwanza said.