After a harrowing Saturday, normalcy was returning to the Global Trust Bank branches across the country on Sunday.
Around 40 branches carried out Sunday banking services. Generally, fifty-nine branches of GTB offer Sunday banking services. The bank's managing director Sudhakar Gande said that around 15,600 customers made use of the Sunday banking services across the country and withdrew around Rs 13.25 crore (Rs 132.5 million).
Reserve Bank of India officials closely monitored all the transactions and the payments made to the customers.
The operations took place as on any normal day save for a minor incident at one branch, he said.
Earlier, a GTB official said that around Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) was kept at each branch to adequately meet the customer's cash needs.
"Several customers withdrew their money and the situation has been reported as normal at all the branches," the official said.
All the branches would start functioning from Monday and arrangements are being made to disburse the amounts up to Rs 10,000 per customer.
In Chennai, four out of the eight branches were open on Sunday to disburse cash to its depositors.
A senior executive of the bank informed that Rs 20 crore (Rs 200 million) was released by the RBI to disburse cash through eight branches in Chennai.
GTB has five more branches in Tamil Nadu -- three in Coimbatore, one each in Madurai and Tiruchy. GTB executives said that the disbursements went off smoothly.
Earlier on Saturday, minutes after the news started to trickle in about the moratorium, GTB depositors started thronging their branches. Security was proactively beefed up by bank's management at the bank's 22 ATM centres across the city.
From the usual solitary security guard at the branch-cum-ATM at R K Salai, there were at least six covering the premises. Many senior citizens were seen outside the bank's branches and ATM centres reading the notices pasted outside the branches in complete disbelief.
Chennai has the third largest number of branches of GTB. Mumbai has 22, Hyderabad 19 and Chennai eight.
In terms of number of ATMs, Hyderabad leads with 66, followed by Mumbai with 38, Bangalore with 23 and Chennai with 22.
GTB executives also informed that all the eight branches in Chennai would continue with the disbursement of Rs 10,000 per account as instructed by RBI. Depositors will be allowed to withdraw cash only from their respective branches.
Though the branches are electronically linked, a GTB executive said, the bank's network was not capable of checking whether the same depositor was trying to make withdrawals from more than one branch.
In Ahmedabad, the Satellite Road branch saw a large queue.
"I have a savings account of over Rs 100,000 with GTB. In fact, I just deposited my salary a few days ago. I hope the bank will merge with some other bank so that we will get back our money," said Rajeev Khanna, a bank customer.
Police personal have been posted in and around GTB branches in the city. The Satellite Road branch, which was the only GTB branch functioning on Sunday, witnessed heavy security.
Despite the crucial India-Pakistan Asia Cup cricket match and downpour, depositors lined up at GTB branches to withdraw money.
