SBI to increase fee-based income through PoS terminals

In 2010-11 State Bank of India (SBI), country’s largest lender will be setting up about 150,000 point of sale (PoS) terminals for debit and credit card payments across India. This way bank will be able to increase its fee-based income. Country’s largest bank, SBI said in its Request for Proposal (RFP), "The present EoI (expressions of interest) is for the purchase of 135,000-150,000 POS terminals across the country during the first year of operations or 2010-11 and also for the managed services during the warranty period or the first year of deployment."

SBI in the first five years of its operations has plans to install around 600,000 PoS terminals for this last year bank floated RFP for the selection of joint venture partner for merchant acquiring business and the selection process is in the final stage. As per the report from SBI the last date for submission of bids is January 25, 2010. The bank is also thinking of acquiring the PoS terminals on an outright purchase basis. Bank is also looking at other options like leasing the terminals as the asset return or non-return and periodical rentals.

To manage the business of the merchants a wholly –owned subsidiary system will be adopted which will include acquiring bank identification numbers (BINs) from the schemes, as well as managing services for PoS terminals, among others. The managed services will include installing PoS terminals at customer location, their replacement, merchant training and maintenance, among others.

Banks’ plan of business circulation based on the new line of operation is focused on a pan-India scale, with metro, urban, semi-urban and rural centers, urban, semi-urban and rural centers, SBI said. At present the State Bank Group has installed more than 18,000 automated teller machines (ATMs) across the country and has issued over 60 million debit cards.