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Pitching for infrastructure status to the ATM industry to make it more viable, market leader NCR Corp on Sunday said that the ATMs are key for last mile delivery of the government's ambitious financial inclusion programme in the country.
Lauding government's Jan Dhan programme, NCR Corp's India head Navroze Dastur said in order to fulfil the ambition of financial inclusion and getting more people into the banking fraternity, one needs to provide relevant infrastructure and the last mile is an ATM.
"The objective of the government is to give you a bank account and get you into the banking fraternity so that you start transacting and using the account. So, ATMs are something that will fulfil the last mile," Dastur said.
He further noted that funding is a big issue for ATM deployers. Infrastructure status to this sector would make the sector more viable.
"When I say infrastructure status, you get loans at lower rates because ATM deployment is a capital intensive industry. They should get funding at lower than market rates or funding with longer repayment cycle. You need to look at ATMs as an infrastructure for financial inclusion," he said.
NCR Corp is a leading player in the global ATM industry and has 48% market share in India. It has a manufacturing facility at Chennai and a global R&D Centre at Hyderabad.
He said the whole purpose of opening a bank account and allotting crores of debit cards will be useless if it is not convenient for the customer to withdraw and deposit money.
According to Dastur, there is huge prospect of growth in the ATM business. Moreover, India is a highly under penetrated country as far as the ATM numbers are concerned.
There are about 120 odd ATMs per million people, while for China it is 350, and for the US it is 1,500.
Opening an ATM is much more viable than opening a bank branch. Besides, it will provide round the clock services, while a branch would function only during office hours.
He further noted ATM segment will not lose its market share or relevance because of mobile banking largely because the rural India, where majority of people reside, does not have infrastructure to support mobile or digital banking. Moreover, the country continues to be cash driven at large.
Most of the banks have launched their mobile banking apps, which facilitate cashless transactions and allows customers to seamlessly use and manage multiple bank accounts through their smartphones.
However, Dastur said: "To move out of a culture of cash to non-cash will take its time. It is not something that is going to happen overnight. It is a process. The process will evolve in different regions differently. In metros, the process will be faster".
"Economies and markets will behave differently. In the US, they have been able to cut down cash but they have not been able to eliminate cash. So, cash will be there. Technology is going to evolve. ATM will stay and it will evolve with technology," he added.
