The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) website crashed on Wednesday morning in the wake of India's shock withdrawal of ₹500 and ₹1,000 bank notes.
RBI is expected to issue new ₹2,000 and ₹500 notes in the coming days and weeks and had detailed several FAQs and directives on its website to banks and people regarding the currency scrapping which has already gone into effect. As of 12:50 pm, the RBI website had been down for at least two hours.
Despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeals to calm during his televised address on Tuesday night, the sudden announcement led to chaos as gas stations and other retailers refused to accept the larger bills, and bank ATMs stayed closed. Long lines were seen outside ATMs the previous night.
The shock measure also sent the markets in a free fall on Wednesday morning which were already spooked by the prospect of Republican candidate Donald Trump winning the U.S. election, with India's National Stock Exchange share index slumping over 1,000 points in early trade.
India's demonetisation move is aimed at combating the scourge of black money, corruption and fake currencies that allegedly fund terrorism.
With Reuters inputs