Currency ban shocks Indians abroad

India’s shock move on Tuesday to withdraw large denomination bank notes from circulation to fight corruption and tax evasion has left some overseas citizens high and dry, as money changers in key Asian centres stopped accepting the currency.

In Hong Kong’s Chungking Mansions, home to more than a dozen money changers and a key hub for Indian businesses and traders, the Indian rupee found no takers, with several currency dealers displaying “0.00” on their counters.

The bustling 17-storey building, made famous by Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 movie Chungking Express depicting the seedy underbelly of Hong Kong, is popular with travellers looking for cheap accommodation and spicy Indian curries. On Wednesday morning, more than the usual number of Indian custo-mers turned up frantically looking to exchange their Indian notes, according to local money changers.

Gurpreet Kaur, a Hong Kong resident of Indian origin who was trying to convert about Rs 50,000, was disappointed after seven money changers refused to accept the 500 rupee bank notes she presented.

“This is really frustrating and we had no time to act,” she said.

In a surprise move, India announced it was banning the circulation of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes.

The decision is designed to bring billions of dollars in unaccounted wealth into the mainstream economy and to tackle India’s corruption and counterfeit currency problems.

It was a similar story in Singapore, another Asian financial centre with a sizeable Indian community, with people holding rupees and unable to exchange them into other currencies. “We’re not trading the currency to-day. Usually no one comes to change rupees but today there are a lot of people coming to change it,” an employee at Singapore-based City Money Changer said.