SBI to start merchant acquiring business soon

Source :ET:NEW DELHI: 25 OCT, 2010, 03.55PM IST,PTI 


State Bank of India (SBI) has said it will soon start business of facilitating payment through debit or credit card at retail outlets and is finalising shareholding pattern with foreign partners. 

"We would be finalising the equity ratio with the joint venture partner soon post which the merchant acquiring business would become operational," SBI chairman OP Bhatt said. 

Merchant acquiring business is facilitation of payment through debit or credit card at the retail outlets. 

SBI is planning to place about 1.50 lakh point of sale POS terminals for debit and credit card payments across the country. 

It plans to deploy six lakh POS terminals in the first five years of its operations. 

RBI has already approved the setting up of a wholly owned subsidiary for conducting merchant acquiring business by the bank in the name of SBI Payment Services. 

US-based Elavon Incorporation and Visa International are joint venture partner of SBI for merchant acquiring business. 

The business penetration of the new line of operation is envisaged on a pan-India scale, with metro, urban, semi-urban and rural centres. 

Last year, the bank had floated Request For Proposal (RFP) for selection of joint venture (JV) partner for merchant acquiring business. 

The business would include acquiring bank identification numbers (BINs) from the schemes, as well as managing services for PoS terminals among others. 

The managed services would include deployment of POS terminals at customer locations, their replacement, merchant training and maintenance, to name a few. 

The State Bank Group presently has over 21,000 ATMs across the country and has issued over 60 million debit cards.