KARACHI: A large number of complaints from banking customers were received by Dawn during the long Eidul Fitr holidays as they were unable to withdraw their money because the automated teller machines (ATMs) were out of cash.

Despite clear instructions from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to all banks to keep the ATMs functional with money during the Eid holidays, most of the machines were without money. It was also noted that a number of ATMs were out of service due to faults.

“Why don’t ATMs work during the holidays? It never happened in Saudi Arabia during my 18-year stay in that country,” said Mr S.N. Ahmed.

Each year, the same situation appears during the long holidays of Eid. However, the banks never tried to improve this ugly situation.

The SBP report showed that digital transactions have been increasing while the highest number of transactions take place through ATMs. A large number of people take out their salaries through ATMs since most companies pay their employees via banks.

However, in the first week of each month, most ATMs don’t work due to server downtime. Banks usually argue that due to overloading as a result of the maximum number of withdrawals in the first week of each month, the server stops working or works slowly.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2022