Srei Infrastructure Ltd plans to set up about 25,000 white label ATMs in rural areas, taking benefit of policy to throw open the segment for non-banking entities.
Hemant Kanoria, chairman and managing director said the company has already made application to Reserve Bank of India. Srei proposes to locate most of these white label ATMs at Common Service Centres (CSCs) operated by Sahaj e-Village Ltd, a SREI group entity.
The final plan will be subject to RBI approval. These CSCs are being set up under government’s plans to bridge digital divide between Rural and urban areas, he said.
SREI has appointed Bharat Technical Solutions Pvt. Ltd (BTSPL) as a Project Management Consultant (PMC) for its white label ATM plan.
Sahaj is working to set up and manage over 28,000 CSCs across six states including Tamil Nadu. The ATMs must be rugged to with stand dust, sub-optimal environment including large temperature variations. Facilities will not be air conditioned.
Although there has been a nearly 23-25 per cent year-on-year growth in the number of ATMs (present count is above 1,00,000) deployment has been predominantly restricted to Tier I, II cities. There is a need to expand the reach of ATMs beyond Tier III. Much needs to be done to expand network inspite of banks' efforts.