Bank of Thailand Governor Prasarn Trairatvorakul insisted that there would be no special holiday for the banking sector, despite higher water level in many areas of Bangkok.
He said that a long holiday could hurt the economy and investor confidence, if the water remains for a long time.
He noted that the extra holiday would be imposed in three cases. First, the payment system collapses which connotes that BOT headquarters and the note printing house are severely flooded, resulting in the collapse of the BahtNet and cheque clearing. Second, the telecommunications and Internet network does not function. Third, over 20 per cent of banks’ operations are damaged and cannot function.
To date, the number of closed bank branches, at 398, accounted for less than 10 per cent of total. Meanwhile, the number of unplugged ATMs, at 4,188, accounted for about 10 per cent.
Commercial banks are prepared for cash withdrawals. In the past few days, they retrieved cash from accounts at the central bank, amounting Bt20 billion a day which is much higher than daily average of Bt5-Bt6 billion prior to the flood crisis.
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