State-owned Union Bank of India (UBI) today sealed a deal with global payments company MasterCard and said it is hopeful of issuing over 15 lakh debit cards by the end of this financial year.
"The bank has a target of issuing over 1.5 million (15 lakh) debit cards with MasterCard logo by March 2010. We aim to focus more on the rural merchant-clients with this tie-up," Union Bank General Manager Transaction Banking Pravin K Bansal told reporters here.
The lender has a similar tie-up with VISA-- another multinational card association. Its total debit card base stands at 41 lakh at present.
The bank expects to achieve Rs 140-150 crore fee income from its transaction banking segment this fiscal, Bansal said.
"The tie-up with Master Card will enable our customers to have access over 9 lakh ATMs globally," Bansal said.
As a first step, the bank will launch four variants of debit cards- Classic (having withdrawal limit of Rs 25,000 per day), Silver (Rs 40,000), Gold (Rs 60,000) and Platinum (Rs 100,000).
UBI has seen an increase in the volume of transactions handled through electronic channel, which moved from 21 per cent to 28 per cent year-on-year, he said.
The lender plans to further increase this volume to 35 per cent that will help it to reduce costs substantially.
