MUMBAI: RBI relaxed its decree on deposits exceeding Rs 5,000 after an avalanche of complaints from customers who said they had been harassed by bank officials seeking “a satisfactory explanation” for delays in crediting the withdrawn Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. RBI has now said the questioning will only apply to those who haven’t furnished know-your-customer (KYC) documentation.The change is the latest in a series of shifts following the November 8 announcement of demonetisation that appear to suggest policy is being made on the fly, experts said.“On a review of the above (the circular RBI issued on December 19), we advise that the provisions of the above circular at sub para (i) and (ii) will not apply to fully KYC compliant accounts,” RBI said on Wednesday in a notice to banks posted on its website.The clarification was awaited after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had apparently contradicted the central bank’s instruction and said one-time deposits will not face any questioning.Bankers expressed relief that they no longer had to make customers feel like they were guilty of wrongdoing for merely following the government’s advice not to rush to banks as they had time until the December 30 deadline to deposit the old series.“Now the situation has eased for customers as yesterday they had to give a declaration in front of two of our officers,” said Rajnish Kumar, MD of State Bank of India. “Now they just have to go to the single window and deposit money... But I think whatever rush is there it will ease in a few days.”A bank employee concurred that deposits are set to taper off in any case.“Yesterday we saw lot of deposits because I believe some of the customers panicked, but we expect deposits to go down here onwards,” a banker said. “As the final deadline draws closer, our sense is that not much is left to deposit in old notes anyway.”RBI, on December 19, said cash in excess of `5,000 can only be credited once in the days remaining until December 30 and instructed banks to question their customers.“The credit in such cases shall be afforded only after questioning tenderer, on record, in the presence of at least two officials of the bank, as to why this could not be deposited earlier and receiving a satisfactory explanation,” RBI’s December 19 notification said. “The explanation should be kept on record to facilitate an audit trail at a later stage. An appropriate flag also should be raised in CBS to that effect so that no more tenders are allowed.” CBS, or core banking system, is the lenders’ technology backbone.Bankers found themselves playing the role of investigators, questioning customers about the reason for the delay. In some instances, customers complained that banks exceeded their brief by asking about the source of funds. Staff defended themselves by saying that they didn’t have any guidance on the scope of “satisfactory explanation” and didn’t want to be hauled up later for being insufficiently interrogative.Some banks even made audio recordings of customer statements while others rejected explanations by people that the delay was on account of heeding government advice to wait for the rush to abate.Rs 5.92 LAKH CRORE ISSUEDIn a separate press release on Wednesday, the central bank said banks have distributed currency worth Rs 5.92 lakh crore between November 10 and December 19. RBI also said it had issued a total of 22.6 billion notes of various denominations during the demonetisation process until December 19.Of this, 20.4 billion were Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 50 and Rs 100 notes while 2.2 billion were Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes.A bank employees’ union leader said staff are still facing customer anger as note supply isn’t meeting demand.“Our issues continue. There is still shortage of currency — you see the figures RBI released today,” said CH Venkatachalam, general secretary, All India Bank Employees Association.“Our customers continue to shout at us. Still RBI is not transparent in supply of cash to different banks and we bankers are getting a bad name because somewhere some huge cash is being recovered. But from where it is coming, which bank has given, there is no enquiry in that.”Venkatachalam was referring to large amounts of new and old currency being found in raids in the past few weeks.