State Bank of India (SBI) today launched two major projects - swipe machines at petrol pumps and Green Channel Counters (GCC) - for cash disbursal to its customers and others in view of the hardships they are facing following delegalisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
SBI today started to install Cash@POS (swipe machine) facility at petrol pumps of three major oil companies -- Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum -- to disburse cash up to Rs 2,000 to customers of SBI and general public through debit cards, SBI Chief General Manager (CGM) Anil Kishora said here today.
In order to shorten queues, SBI has also commenced Green Channel Counter (GCC) at its 1,165 branches in Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh, Kishora said.
Customers need to simply swipe their debit cards and punch in their PIN to deposit cash into and withdraw cash from their accounts, he said.
Except for cash disbursal, there will be no manual intervention in this new system that can result in handling of more customers, he added.
The GCC counter can also be used to transfer money to any account with SBI branches all over the country, he said.
As far as installation of PoS machines at petrol pumps is concerned, they are being activated on a priority basis in rural and semi-urban areas of Punjab and Haryana to mitigate the problems.
PoS swipe machines are also being activated on a war footing along highways, Kishora said.
He said this would benefit the general public suffering due to delayed recalibration of ATM machines of various banks in the region.
So far, 309 swipe machines have been made operational at petrol pumps in the two states.
The bank is working with the oil companies and dealers to roll out Cash@POS at 1,500 petrol pumps in Punjab and 1,000 in Haryana within this week.
"Once the rollout of swipe machines is completed, the
facility is expected to provide immense convenience to the public," he said.
He said consumers will be able to use SBI debit cards or of any other bank to swipe at these POS machines and draw cash up to Rs 2,000 per day per card.
The weekly limit of Rs 24,000 will, however, apply till restrictions on cash withdrawal are in place.
He said mobile swipe machines for cash disbursal of cash up to Rs 2,000 have also been made functional at important public places, including hospitals, educational institutions, airports, railway bus stands and inter-state bus terminuses.
In the northern region, 1,661 ATMs for dispensing Rs 2,000 notes and 393 cash deposit machines have also been deployed.
SBI is also pushing SBI's mobile wallet called State Bank (SB) Buddy. It can be downloaded from mobile stores and used to make small purchases like buying train/bus tickets, movie tickets, recharging pre-paid mobile or payment to retail merchants.
More than one lakh people have registered for SB Bank Buddy since "the digital wallet is very useful" as one can receive or pay money even without debit or credit Card.
Kishora said SBI is on-boarding merchants and vendors to the Buddy platform to ensure their daily business is not affected due to customers not carrying small denomination currency notes.
The bank is arranging for this facility in all rural and semi-urban areas in particular.
It has formed a Digital Operations Support Team (DOST) at its Local Head Office (LHO) here to drive the initiative in mission mode by providing resolutions to problems faced by staff and the public on a real-time basis.
