DUSHANBE, January 7, 2009, Asia-Plus — Banks in Tajikistan have denied rumors about shortage of cash at automatic teller machines (ATM) as unfounded; however, these rumors have caused people to become worried.
Ismatullo Saidov, head of the center for public relations within open joint-stock company (OJSC) Agroinvestbonk, said that their bank did not have such problems and noted that all that was nothing more than rumors and “these rumors are made and spread by competitors.”
“There were certain problems with transfer of money from other countries at the end of last year, when our customers had to wait for remittances up to four days. This problem caused by external factors has already been solved,” said Saidov, “We have not experienced shortage of cash at our ATMs.”
According to him, Agroinvestbonk has 51 ATMs across the country and they have enough amount of both the national currency and US dollars. “Our customers do not have any problems with use of credit cards at post-terminals in 59 sales outlets in Dushanbe and wages are paid through credit cards opportunely,” Saidov said.
In the meantime, a spokesman for Tojiksodirotbonk (TSB) Qurbon Vosiyev said that they had certain problems with shortage of cash at TSB’s ATMs at the end of last year.
“However, these problems have been solved quickly and our ATMs now operate properly,” the TSB spokesman said, noting that those problems had resulted from artificially created stir about forthcoming financial crisis and possible break-up of local banks as well as the New Year holidays.
“For these reasons customers were trying to withdraw more money, and therefore, we had problem with filling ATMs in time,” said Vosiyev, “Now, when holidays are behind and people are convinced that no crisis threatens our bank, TSB’s ATMs operate in normal regime.”
Orionbonk and Tajikistan Development Bank (TDB) have also denied rumors about the ATM cash shortages as unfounded.
