Now kiranas to have ATMs in Karnataka

Bengaluru: BTI Payments Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Australian company, the Banktech Group, will be installing 9,000 India 1 ATMs, the company’s own brand of White Label ATMs (WLAs) across the country, beginning with small towns with less than 50,000 people in Karnataka.

This is in accordance with the RBI’s WLA initiative that seeks to provide increased access of financial services to the under-served markets in the country by third party providers.

“We have just installed the first India 1 ATM at Gubbi, a tier 4 town with less than 20,000 population in Tumkur district of Karnataka and are pioneering the concept of ‘ATM in a shop’ by setting up two ATMs in kirana stores, one each in the towns of Tiptur and Arsikere in Tumkur district,” said K. Srinivas, MD and CEO, BTI Payments Private Ltd.

“Of the 9,000 ATMs that we plan to roll out over the next three years, 3 out of every 4 ATMs will be installed in towns with a population of less than 50,000 people,” he said.

The company plans to add a number of value added services within the next 12 months, such as, insurance and mobile payments, booking train and bus tickets to India 1 ATMs.

Currently, all users with debit cards from banks can use India 1 ATMs to withdraw cash from their accounts.

Stating that the Indian market is very large and has the potential to have four lakh ATMs from its present number of just 1.5 lakh, which is very small compared to the US and China markets, Mr Srinivas pointed out that, China has one ATM for less than 1,000 people compared to India which has one for every 8,000 people; and the US has three times the number of ATMs than India, for a population that is just one-third that of India.

A survey of the needs of Indian consumers in small towns done by BTI revealed that consumers wanted self-service cash withdrawal facilities, however, they also wanted human intervention, in case they had problems accessing the cash.

“That’s the primary reason for us to opt for an ‘ATM in a Shop’  model, where the shopkeeper can guide users on how to use the India 1 ATMs. We will also be setting up these ATMs in transit areas like bus stops and railways stations as well as in the market and baz-aar areas to make it more convenient for people” said David Glen, chairman, BTI Payments.

BTI Payments owns and operates more than 8,000 point of sale terminals and over 800 ATMs for a number of banks including Indian Overseas Bank, Syndicate Bank, Dhanalakshmi Bank etc.