New Delhi, Mar 31 (KNN)  Public sector lender, State Bank of India with its five Associate Banks (ABs) has drawn plans to implement micro-ATM standards at all the outlets in the Business Correspondent (BC) channel. The micro ATMs will be handheld devices to be operated at the post office level while the ATMs will be similar to the ones operated by any commercial bank. 

Unlike commercial banks' machines, however, access to the India Post ATMs will be limited to holders of post office savings accounts.

The micro ATM will support financial transactions like deposit; withdrawal; funds transfer; and balance enquiry.

The Banks BC channel also known as the Bank Representatives has grown rapidly over the last five years with about 40,000 customer service points in all the geographies riding on different technology platform like – Internet bases Kiosk Banking, Mobile Banking and Point of Sale (POS).

“The SBI is seeking for vendors who will be empanelled for procuring suitable complementary devices or accessories to make all the outlets micro-ATM compliant,” SBI said.
“The procurement of the devices will be done by the BCs,” it added.

In this context, the SBI wants to rope in private sector to empanel them as vendors for a period of up to three years for supplying its BCs devices and accessories which conform to the specifications mentioned in the micro-ATM standards.

As per direction under Financial Inclusion from Government of India, banks are providing banking facilities to rural population at their door step through Bank Correspondents who deliver the services at village level by using Micro ATMs.

The postal department, which has 1.55 lakh post offices over 90 per cent of which are in villages, offers the savings account to people across the country and pays an interest of 4 per cent per annum for such deposits. The account offers cheque facility at present.  (KNN/SD)