News

Russian ATMs say 'nyet' to new banknotes

March 9, 2012

Bank customers across Russia are having their 500- and 5,000-ruble notes spit back at them when they try to feed them into ATMs, said an article at themoscownews.com. The problem stems from banks' failure to reprogram their machines to accept redesigned banknotes, the report said. The 500-ruble note is the most widely used currency in Russia.

The banks blame the problem on ATM manufacturers. “The current technological solutions provided by [all producers] will not let us identify 5,000 ruble notes and we don’t see any solution to this in the near future,” said MasterBank first deputy managing chairman Alexander Bulochnik.

Russia's Central Bank gives FIs their share of the blame. “The time lag between the announcement of this release of new denominations and their release was done specifically so banks and terminal networks had time to prepare their equipment,” said a source at the Central Bank.

The nation’s leading network of payment terminals, Qiwi, did manage to ready its 120,000 machines for the new banknotes. Said Qiwi Public Relations Director Alexandra Vysochkina, “Given that the terminals are our main source of income, the owners are interested in a timely software update and did it quickly." 

This is not the first hitch in the currency changeover. A Moscow News story in September reported that notes had to be re-redesigned when it was discovered that the artist worked from a 1960s-era reference photo of the Solovetsky Monastery, a revered Russian landmark. The photo did not include the traditional onion domes of the monastery — which at the time was being used as a labor camp for political prisoners.

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