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SBI to intiate merchant acquiring business
By siliconindia
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Monday, 25 October 2010, 23:45 IST
Bangalore: State Bank of India (SBI) will soon venture in business of facilitating payment through debit or credit card at retail outlets and is finalizing shareholding pattern with foreign partners.
SBI chairman, OP Bhatt said,"We would be finalizing the equity ratio with the joint venture partner soon post which the merchant acquiring business would become operational."
SBI is planning to place about 1.50 lakh point of sale POS terminals for debit and credit card payments across the country.It plans to deploy six lakh POS terminals in the first five years of its operations.
RBI has already approved the setting up of a wholly owned subsidiary for conducting merchant acquiring business by the bank in the name of SBI Payment Services.
The business penetration of the new line of operation is envisaged on a pan-India scale, with metro, urban, semi-urban and rural centers.
The business would include acquiring bank identification numbers (BINs) from the schemes, as well as managing services for PoS terminals among others.
The managed services would include deployment of POS terminals at customer locations, their replacement, merchant training and maintenance, to name a few.
The State Bank Group presently has over 21,000 ATMs across the country and has issued over 60 million debit cards.
Last year, the bank had floated Request For Proposal (RFP) for selection of joint venture (JV) partner for merchant acquiring business.
US-based Elavon Incorporation and Visa International are joint venture partner of SBI for merchant acquiring business