Financial inclusion: Are 63,000 more ATMs enough?

Sate-run banks in India have jointly outsourced installing and managing of about 63,000 automatic teller machines, a report in The Times of India says.

The banks have roped in nine private sector companies for this, including Tata Communication and Banking Infra and NCR Corp.

According to the report, the service providers have been chosen by dividing the country into 13 zones and auctioning the contracts for installing 3,000-6,000 ATMs in each zone.

ATMs make cash transactions easier and the country definitely has a dearth of them.

At present, the country has more than 90,000 ATMs, according to the Reserve Bank of India.

In a bid to encourage ATM transactions, the central bank had recently allowed non-bank entities to set up, own and operate ATMs, labelled white label ATMs.

More from Business

Hyundai India’s Rs 27,870 crore IPO oversubscribed by 2.28X, largely driven by institutional investors How Indian fintech startups are driving Malaysia’s UPI-like digital payments revolution

According to the RBI, ATM adoption by customers has modified personal banking in India and banks have played a major role in this.

ATMs are delivering a wide variety of banking services to customers across the banking industry and this has expanded the scope of banking to anytime, anywhere banking, it said.

[caption id=“attachment_367956” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  According to the RBI, ATM adoption by customers has modified personal banking in India and banks have played a major role in this. AFP[/caption]

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

Tata Harrier EV vs Mahindra XEV 9e: Design and road presence compared

As Trump weaponises tariff, Fed sees a bigger worry: Not jobs, but rising prices in America

Although there has been nearly 23-25 percent year-on-year growth in the number of ATMs, their deployment has been predominantly in Tier I & II centres. There is a need to expand the reach of ATMs in Tier III to VI centres," it said in the release allowing white label ATMs.

The coming together will help public sector banks cut transaction costs, the ToI report said.

But would the move help meet the RBI’s aim?