India Transact to install self-service kiosks

The company, part of Rs 350-crore AGS Group, has partnered with Hindustan Petroleum, and is in talks with BPO service providers such as Accenture and multiplexes such as Cinemax to base these kiosks.

India Transact would be investing Rs 50 crore in the next six months for this purpose.

"Transactions through self-service kiosks tend to be faster. It's for this reason that ATMs are a hit. We have tried to create a software that has a user-friendly interface. The kiosk culture would take at least five years to become big in India, but we want to get the first-mover advantage," Amit Tandon, business head, India Transact, said.

Other companies which have adopted the kiosk model of transactions include GSM major Vodafone. The kiosks for mobile bill payments have been manufactured by India Transact's competitor NCR.

As such, no syndicated data is available for the kiosks market, but the demand is evident from how some companies are pursuing their retail strategy aggressively supported by these kiosks.

Reliance Money, for example, is going to station around 10,000 kiosks for online trading with India Transact providing these kiosks.

"The main objective of a self-service kiosk is to provide an easy e-commerce platform for those who do not have access to internet," Tandon said.

For its multi-function kiosks at HPCL's Club outlets, India Transact has tied up with Visa for credit card payments. For travel booking, the company has also tied up with Travelguru and Yatra, with Rediff for shopping, with IndusInd for banking and with Oxigen for mobile top-ups.

These kiosks will be manned by a sales promoter to assist customers. These kiosks may offer a new out-of-home advertising channel too.