NEW DELHI: Cashless shoppers counting on credit and debit cards for a weekend splurge were in for a distressing time as card networks failed to put through a large number of transactions on Sunday evening.Retailers found several networks unresponsive, and were thus forced to turn away customers hoping to make card payments. The failed transactions took place in a two-hour window from 6pm to 8pm, when card transactions peaked, and were reported from across the country.Customers in Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat, Kolkata and Goa reported problems with card networks. Failed transactions held up queues in big retail chains, caused embarrassment to customers at restaurants, among other places, and resulted in a further loss of business for merchants already hit by a cash shortage since the demonetisation decision kicked in on November 9. While a few customers were forced to abandon their shopping plans, others found some relief as they were allowed to pay with digital wallets.The exact cause for Sunday’s mayhem could not be determined, however, as a blame game ensued between banks, card networks and processing companies. According to some banks, third-party processors could not manage the rush, with strained telecom networks exacerbating the situation.The third-party processors and payment networks, meanwhile, said that the problem appeared to be with telecom connectivity. According to them, this explained why the problem was multi-city, multi-bank and across merchants.According to Manju Agarwal, deputy managing director, State Bank of India, Sunday’s card-transaction traffic represented a six fold rise over the figures seen in pre-demonetisation days.“Before demonetisation we handled 3.5 lakh transactions a day. Immediately after demonetisation, we saw the number jump to 5 lakh, and to 11-12 lakh a week later. On Sunday, we processed 20.5 lakh transactions,” she said. “Banks and service providers will be able to ramp up (operations), but my main worry is whether the telecom companies will,” Agarwal added.All the big banks said that there was no problem with either their core banking or their card acceptance network. “Compared to regular volumes, our debit and credit card transactions have witnessed significant growth since the announcement of demonetisation. Our servers are fully capacitised to handle these increased volumes.We have undertaken millions of transactions over the weekend seamlessly,” said an ICICI Bank spokesperson. According to Loney Antony, managing director of Hitachi Payment Services, which processes a fourth of the card payments, the company processed 30 lakh transactions between 6pm and 8pm on Sunday — nearly 10 times the pre-demonetisation average.“There is no problem with the processing capacity, we have enough redundancy built in to handle multiple times the current volume,” said Antony, indicating that the problem lay elsewhere.