SBI to install 150 biometric ATMs in Guj by March-end
Press Trust of India / Ahmedabad Feb 06, 2009, 17:51 IST
State Bank of India (SBI), the country's largest public sector lender, today said it will install 150 biometric ATM machines across Gujarat by the end of March this year.
"The orders for biometric ATM's have been placed and we expect to install 150 such machines initially in important districts and talukas of the state by March end this year," SBI Chief General Manager of Gujarat H C Pattnaik told PTI.
The facility will help the underprivileged citizens to withdraw cash on thumb impression basis.
The introduction of these biometric ATMs will be beneficial to a large number of milk vendors, tribal and under privileged populace spread across the state is expected to come under the fold of banking.
"Thumb impression of the customer will be captured on the electronic chip in the card and the account will be operational once he swipes it, so even the under privileged can withdraw money," Pattnaik said.
As part of its financial inclusion programme, SBI has launched two other biometric models of banking to extend its reach in remote areas and tribal pockets of the state, and take banking right to the doorsteps of rural folks.
"As a pilot project we also launched another biometric model of banking using a telephone and SBI tiny card, in three districts of the state namely Surat, Vadodara and Dang," he said.
ATM services of SBI have deteriorated in last one year. Response time is too bad, customers are logged out without completion of ATM transaction and average time to issue/replace ATM cards is as large as one month. This is atrocious. Instead of trying to remain in news by talking of biometric ATMs, SBI must concentrate on improving ATM response time by having more capacity and reduce ATM card issue time to three days instead of one month. HSBC,Citi, HDFC just take 3 days to issue/replace an ATM card. SBI takes more than a month.
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