ATM cash assured for flood-weary folk

The Central Bank’s payments and settlements office will be operational on Wednesday, a holiday, to allow banks to refill their automated teller machines (ATM) with cash.

This comes after two days of heavy rains and flooding, which forced the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) payments and settlements office to close down. Financial markets were also closed due to bad weather that had paralyzed Metro Manila.

“The BSP will service cash withdrawals of banks (Wednesday) to help banks replenish their ATM units,” BSP Deputy Governor and officer-in-charge Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. said in a statement.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 90 percent of all ATMs in Metro Manila still had enough cash and remained in operation in spite of the widespread flooding since Monday.

But to ensure that the public had enough cash to get them through the rest of the week, the BSP decided to serve cash withdrawals by banks, which are not usually done on holidays, Espenilla said.

“The payments and settlements office of the BSP will also operate tomorrow to settle interbank ATM transactions,” Espenilla said.

Aug. 21 marks the 30th death anniversary of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., father of the President, whose assassination in 1983 marked the beginning of the end for the Marcos dictatorship. Paolo G. Montecillo