A recent press report said that State Bank of India has planned to ramp up its ATM network by 8,000-10,000 every year over the next three years so as to cut down on long queues outside its ATMs in urban and semi-urban areas.
The bank is looking at earning fee income from the other bank customers who would transact in its ATMs. Reports said that SBI and its associate banks have issued about 8 crore debit cards so far and the average number of cards per ATM currently is around 3,000.
Mr. A. Krishna Kumar, Managing Director, SBI said that the number of cards per ATM, in case of SBI is currently at 2,500-3,000, which is huge and that 1,500 cards per ATM is an acceptable level for ATM transactions to be efficient.
He also said that in semi-urban and urban areas sometimes there are long queues in front of SBI ATMs because the single ATM is not able to handle so much traffic, so the bank is trying to install a second or a third ATM in the same booth to manage the queues and get more transactions. He added saying that due to the queues people are going to other bank ATMs and SBI has to pay other banks.
The bank is planning to open around 1,000 branches this year, of which at least 50 per cent will be in unbanked rural areas. The county’s largest lender offers home loan, personal loan, auto loan, agriculture loan etc.