Set some cash aside! As of the morning of Thursday, June 30 until mid-day on Friday, July 1, the banksa?? customers will not be able to use their cards for withdrawing cash from ATMs or for making payments to merchants or of bills at ATMs, due to the shutdown of the computer systems.
The cards issued by the Romanian banks will not be possible to use abroad, either, for the same amount of time.
This will be but one of the more difficult practical issues surrounding July 1, when the shift to the new ROL (RON) is made by striking four zeros off the current amounts.
Besides the cash dispenser and points-of-sale networks brought offline for at least 24 hours, the banksa?? pay desks will be closed from Thursday though Monday, with only a handful of exceptions. This makes for a fair amount of stress caused by the need to make payments in advance or reschedule payments between business partners. At the same time, the banks advise those clients that have instalments to pay that fall due on June 30 or July 1 to transfer cash to current accounts on June 29, so that the payable amounts could be withdrawn automatically, thus avoiding overdue instalments.
As instructed by the NBR, the commercial banks will not work with customers on Thursday June 30 and Friday, July 1, so that they could concentrate exclusively on the internal operations required by the adjustment of the computer systems and conversion of the amounts in accounts from old ROL to RON. Some of them, such as Bancpost, will also cut their business hours short on Wednesday, June 29, when they will work only until 12 pm. On the other hand, another major retail bank, BRD-SocGen, which operates the second largest branch network, intends to keep some of its offices open to the public on June 30 and July 1, which will only perform simple operations like deposit-making or foreign currency exchange. No office will be distributing RON during the two days.
The corporate customers of banks need to be aware that they will not be able to make any kind of payment on Thursday and Friday, because the interbank payment system will not be operational. As for individual customers, bankers recommend they should plan their expenses for June 30 and secure the necessary cash in good time. Time deposits falling due during the two above-mentioned days are automatically renewed for similar periods or will be automatically transferred to current accounts depending on the preferences stated by clients when making such deposits.
The banking system is to resume normal operations on Monday, July 4, which is also the first day when customers will be able to get RON at the banksa?? pay desks.
Cardholders might have the chance to get new bills as early as of the afternoon of July 1, when the cash dispensers are brought back online. Chances of that happening are rather dim, as the number of cash dispensers filled with RON on July 1 will be quite low. Banca Comerciala Romåna (Romanian Commercial Bank - BCR), the largest bank in Romania will start feeding RON on the market through 250 ATMs. razvan.voican@zf.ro
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