News

India's public sector banks to install 60K new ATMs

May 11, 2012

After a delay of several months, India's public sector banks have worked out a plan to deploy up to 60,000 additional ATMs across the country within the next two years.

According to a report from the Business Standard, the banks suspended expansion while an outsourcing model was developed by the government.

“This will be a completely outsourced model," a senior official from a payment service provider company told the Business Standard. "The requirements for 22 regions across India have been clubbed into 16 bidding circles; we expect the whole process to be completed in June and results to be announced by June-end."

Data from National Payments Corporation of India places the total number of ATMs in India at 98,025 as of April 30, 2012. A study by NCR indicated that about 70 percent of deployment  was in urban areas, the article said.

While the expansion plan does not specify an urban-rural ratio for the public sector bank deployment, "a higher deployment in rural areas is being considered,” said a senior official of a large PSB.

Also under consideration are customized ATMs for rural India. These would feature a 23-dialect interface and biometric authorization capability for users who did not wish to use a PIN number, the article said.

For more on this topic, visit the installation/deployment research center.