India is going to stop using 2,000-rupee notes.

India’s central bank said on Friday that it will start taking out of circulation its highest-value currency notes. This is a move that economists say could help boost bank savings at a time when credit growth is high.

The withdrawal of 2,000-rupee ($24.5) notes, which the finance ministry’s top official, T.V. Somanathan, said would not affect “normal life or the economy,” comes before elections in four big states at the end of the year and a national vote in the spring of 2024.

Most of India’s political parties are thought to save money in large bills in order to pay for their election campaigns and get around the Election Commission’s strict spending limits.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that the withdrawal was made because there was proof that the denomination was not often used for transactions.

The notes will still be accepted as payment, it said, but people will have to turn them in and get smaller bills by September 30.

In a release, the RBI said, “The stock of banknotes in other denominations continues to be enough to meet the public’s currency needs.”

In 2016, the Narendra Modi-led government suddenly stopped issuing 500 and 1000 rupee notes to get rid of fakes. This was done to make room for the new 2,000 rupee note.

There isn’t much proof that the plan worked, but removing 86 percent of the value of the money in circulation overnight did cause a systemic cash shortage.

After a few days, the government started making new 500 rupee notes and added the 2,000 to get more money into circulation faster.

Since then, though, the central bank has focused on making notes of 500 rupees or less and hasn’t made any new 2,000-rupee notes in the last four years.

Pronab Sen, an economist and India’s former top statistician, said that taking away the higher-value note was “a smart way to get rid of cash.”

ICRA’s senior vice president of Financial Sector Ratings, Karthik Srinivasan, said that banks’ deposit growth rates “could get a little bit better in the near term.”

“This will make it less likely that deposit rates will go up, and it could also cause short-term interest rates to go down,” he said.

Even though the RBI rate has gone up 250 basis points since May, Indian banks have been showing double-digit growth in loans over the past few months. Banks are getting more withdrawals at a faster rate to keep up with the growing demand and reduce the amount of money available.