Giant customer lines in India's banks

Danilo Anton

In an extremely traumatic measure, on November 8, the government of India decided to prohibit the use of 500 and 1000 rupee notes, effective immediately.

In other words, the government swept the value of 86% of all the circulating paper currency, forcing to change all the bills of those values ​​that represent the greater part of all paper bills.

The economy of India, of 1,400 million inhabitants, is based on informal transactions using paper money. Only 1% of the population pays income tax. 

Almost all of the transactions are made with 500 and 1000 rupees bills.

Because only 4000 rupees (80 US $) per day can be exchanged there are are tens of millions of people queuing up to change their bills,

It is a currency exchange operation with gigantic dimensions that have no precedents at the world level.

This measure will mainly affect the poorest who keep their savings in their homes outside the banks. These are the vast majority of the population (more than 99% of the people!).

Interestingly, no incidents have yet been reported
12/11/16