​Indian Post Office ATMs will be a reality soon

When Indian Post office announced that they will soon deploy their own ATMs across the country, it gave their customers hope that they no longer would have to stand in serpentine queues to take out their cash kept in Post Office. CMS Info system has signed a deal with the Department of Post to personalize over 15 million debit cards for India Post savings account holders.

The deal, valued at Rs 30 crores, is estimated to be completed in the next three years. The Department of Post (DOP) presently covers a base of approximately 100 million account holders in India, and is in the midst of a phased deployment of ATMs across the country, to better service their customers. To facilitate production of personalized debit cards that can be used at these ATMs, CMS Info Systems has been selected by the DOP to supply Rupay enabled cards.

Commenting on the deal, Mokam Singh Matta, Head of Card Business, said “Our latest deal with DOP will power issuance of personalized cards to complement their ATM deployment plans over a three-year period. We expect this to benefit people using teller facilities at the DOP branches, as they can now begin to use these cards for more convenient cash withdrawals. As the leading player in Card Personalization, CMS is proud to be associated with initiatives that help make financial services more accessible across India. In addition to financial cards, CMS also personalizes Smart Cards which are being increasingly used in large scale government projects, including National ID, Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) and Employee's State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). Some of these form a critical backbone for financial inclusion projects in the country.”

The personalized debit cards for DOP will be issued on the NPCI platform and their usage would initially only be on ATMs installed at DOP branches, as a closed loop environment. The cards can later be used on other ATMs with Rupay affiliation. These cards will initially be of the magstripe variant, with the option of EMV being available to the account holders after a set period of time.

(Image: Reuters)