As expected, banks around Malta and Gozo were teeming with activity yesterday, but both major banks reported a smooth changeover to the euro so far.

Bank of Valletta reported that its branches were operating smoothly notwithstanding the heavy demand, while HSBC said it had foreseen that the first few days of the changeover would be busy and the situation was under control all the time.

John Cassar Torreggiani, executive head responsible for the euro changeover programme at Bank of Valletta announced: “Up till 2pm today (Wednesday), BOV branches have handled nearly 15,000 cash transactions exchanging Maltese lira to euro for a total value of e7.42 million / Lm3.2 million. A further e5.1 million / Lm2.2 million were deposited by customers”.

In a statement, BOV said up to e3.6 million / Lm1.5 million was withdrawn from BOV ATMs until 4pm yesterday.

Josef Camilleri, head of public affairs at HSBC said, on the other hand, that the bank could not divulge the amount of money withdrawn from ATMs for security reasons.

Mr Camilleri said: “HSBC considers the changeover to be a complete success, as we planned well for it. It has been very smooth with all of our ATMs dispensing euro at the stroke of midnight, same with electronic point-of-sale (EPOS) machines and all other systems.”

Bank of Valletta also reported strong card usage with transactions worth over 575,000 euros being processed through its EPOS terminal network up till 2pm yesterday.

Meanwhile, BOV reminded the public that today its branches would again remain open till 4pm.

Customers can make cash deposits in both Maltese lira and euro, cash exchange from Maltese lira to euro, and exchange foreign currency banknotes into euro banknotes and coins.