State Bank of India Ltd. is providing soldiers of the Indian Army with payroll debit cards as part of a special salary package, a spokesperson from the bank tells PaymentsSource.
Under an agreement, the Mumbai-based bank will provide all of the Army’s 1.2 million soldiers and officers with a lifelong account number and a MasterCard-branded debit card. Cardholders may use the card to withdraw their salary pay from ATMs as well use to shop at merchants that accept MasterCard.
Until 2000, “soldiers would be paid in cash, while officers could have their salaries deposited in a designated bank,” Col Kamal Kishore Bhai, a retired cavalry officer from the Indian army, tells PaymentsSource. Since then, both officers and soldiers have been able to cash their paychecks at the branch of any state-owned bank located at or near their base or with an ATM card, if it was available.
“This is the first centralized move in the way soldiers and officers will be able to” access their pay, a spokesperson for the state-owned bank tells PaymentsSource. “These accounts and cards will also work after retirement to receive and withdraw their pensions,” he says.
State Bank also will provide debit cards to soldiers’ wives or their parents if they are unmarried, he adds.
The bank already has registered 900,000 soldiers, 300,000 retired personnel and 25,000 serving army officers for the payroll debit card accounts, according to the spokesperson,
The bank also plan to install point-of-sale terminals in more than 5,000 stores operated by the Canteen Stores Department of the Indian Army, which will enable soldiers to use their cards to shop at those locations. “About 100 of these terminals are already in place,” the spokesperson adds.
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