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The State Bank of India plans to outsource deployment and management of some 500 ATMs, a spokesperson for the bank tells CardLine Global. The spokesperson declines to provide more details, but the Economic Times newspaper in India reports the bank hopes to save money through the outsourcing. Prathima Rajan, an India-based analyst for United States-based Celent LLC, tells CardLine Global the bank has a network of about 8,500 ATMs. Rajan says the bank has invited bids for the outsourcing but has not released a list of possible vendors. "Outsourcing of such services was very rare [until] now with the public-sector banks," she says. "This move will positively encourage some more [public-sector banks] to outsource such services in the future." CardLine Global calls to two major ATM vendors in India were not returned.
