State Bank of India plans to deploy ATMs that can process various types of bills by scanning the bar codes displayed on them, an official from the Mumbai-based bank confirms to PaymentsSource.
“These include mobile, electricity, credit card and civic bills,” he says. A reader reads the barcode and informs the customer on the screen of the bill amount. The customer may then pay the bill by swiping his debit card and entering his PIN.
“We have begun tying up with entities that will need bill-payment services,” the official says. “We already have agreements with telecom operators Airtel Ltd. and Vodafone Ltd.”
The bank will deploy the first three barcode-reading ATMs in the state of West Bengal next month, and it will deploy 13 more in the next phase by the end of August, the official says. “In time, we will cover 50 million customers with this service,” he adds.
The official was not immediately able to say who is manufacturing the machines, though the bank did order ATMs last year from NCR Corp. Wincor Nixdorf (
