Cash Torrent

Apr 19, 2012 (LBO) - Commercial Bank said Sri Lankans planning to celebrate the traditional new year last week had withdrawn a record amount of cash from its automated teller machines. Its ATMs dispensed 7.6 billion rupees in the week preceding the new year on April 14 with an all-time single-day high of 1.6 billion rupees withdrawn on April 10 alone, a statement said.

"This single-day record by the country’s largest electronic cash dispensing network of 512 ATMs surpassed the previous record of 1.2 billion rupees set by Commercial Bank on 8th April 2011."

In the seven days to April 11, the day before the four-day new year weekend, the bank’s ATM’s dispensed a total of 7.6 billion rupees, at an average of more than a billion rupees a day.

It said more than 306,000 transactions had been processed by the bank’s ATM network on April 10, 2012 alone, at an average of over 600 per machine and an average frequency of one cash dispensation every 2.4 minutes over a 24 hour period.

"This demonstrates the robustness of the ATMs and the bank’s ability to replenish them speedily as cash is withdrawn," the bank said.