Following non-availability of new currency notes, various merchants are rushing to procure Point-of-Sale (PoS) machines. In this backdrop, the banks, including State Bank of India, Union Bank of India, United Bank of India, Canara Bank, Axis Bank and RBL Bank, have approached PoS procuring and manufacturing companies to get "We have placed an order for more than 40,000 terminals and will be increasing that number subsequently as we have seen a huge jump in the number of enquiries from merchant establishments," Sangram Singh, head of cards and merchant acquiring business at Axis Bank, told ET.
The cost of one PoS ranges between Rs 6,000-10,000, which is often borne by the banks themselves in the case of big merchant establishments that generate significant volume of business such as major retail outlets, because it helps route payments through their platforms.
"We are planning to install 25,000 terminals in the next few months as it will not only help in improving our current and savings account balance, but also increase customer convenience," Rakesh Sharma, managing director at Canara Bank, which currently has only 4,900
"We have received a mandate to install 10,000 terminals from United Bank of India and 20,000 from RBL Bank.We already have around 27,000 terminals deployed for Union Bank of India, which I am sure will also be ramped up," Dewang Neralla, managing director at Atom Technologies, told ET.
There are currently 1.5 million PoS terminals installed in the country. Bankers said one million terminals are likely to be installed in the next six months with the government tracking their installation on a regular basis.