Dei Card Personalisation Centre In Mumbai

DEI Ltd, the first third-party processor of plastic money in the country, has set up a card personalisation centre in the city.

The centre will help banks reduce costs up to 50 per cent in the personalisation of credit, debit and ATM cards by outsourcing the job from the company.

To date banks have been undertaking card personalisation on their own, and finding it difficult to administer the same as it is not their core business activity. Moreover, banks have to invest over Rs 4 crore in the necessary equipment, even as they may not necessarily have the required volumes to make it economically viable.

"The outsourcing model is coming of age now," said DEI president and chief executive officer Deepak Soota. DEI has already undertaken personalisation of over five million cards in the last two years for banks such as HSBC, BNP Paribas, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and UTI Bank. However, as Visa and Master Card had not approved the DEI centre, it had to undertake the personalisation job at the banks' premises. ATMs and non-bank loyalty cards, on the other hand, were handled at the company's premises.

The DEI centre in Andheri, Mumbai, has received the Visa International certification that the centre has the highest standards of security to ensure complete safety and confidentiality of sensitive bank data and card products. Master Card is in the process of certifying the centre and is expected to give its approval in a month's time.

DEI's centre has a capacity to personalise 45,000 cards in a day. Cards have become a volume game and one of the leading banks in the country proposes to issue two million debit cards in the next 12 months. This indicates a potential market for DEI, said company sources.

The market is growing rapidly not only for credit cards but also for debit and ATM cards. The market for debit and ATM cards is expected to outstrip credit cards by the end of the fiscal.

ATM and debit cards are expected to increase from the present two million plus to over 250 million in the next five-seven years as "we move towards a cash-less society", said Soota. Gradually, ATMs cards are expected to phase out and give way to debit cum ATM cards, he added.

"Our centre in Mumbai will undertake the entire process right from the entry of the data of individuals to sending the cards to the end customers," said Soota.

He also expects co-operative and regional banks to introduce debit cards by outsourcing their requirement to DEI. The DEI centre is equipped with imported machines from Italy-based CIM. It has a team of trained engineers to ensure industry standard and quick turnaround of personalised products.