Number of ATMs dips, PoS centres see rise in digital payments push

While digital payments are seeing exponential growth, cash shows no signs of slowing

As the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s Vision 2021 report aims to achieve ‘highly digital’ and ‘cash lite’ society in line with the government’s push for Digital India, the payments infrastructure is also undergoing a transformation.

The deployment of point of sales (PoS) terminals picked up during financial year 2019 whereas the total number of automated teller machines (ATM) in the country decreased.  ATM penetration in the country is already one of the lowest in the world in terms of total population. During the past year, ATMs fell marginally by 554 units to 2.22 lakh units whereas the number of