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Harish K Murthi
Chairman & Managing Director
HMA Group of Companies |
It gives me immense pleasure in announcing that after a span of one year, “HMA Bankbiz”, the Flagship magazine of HMA Group, is being re-launched in collaboration with The Indian Express.
Banking, in the new customer-centric market, is all about offering ubiquitous & innovative value added services. While on the banking front, the year 2006 has been a time of constantly supporting the continuous flood of new requirements & build effective customer/ product ratio, on the ATM industry front, it has been a period of challenge to empower them, to fulfill this objective.
During the years passed by, ATM industry, through significant technological breakthroughs & enhanced retail banking solutions, has played a pivotal role in the “graduation of the banking sector from a completely regulated market to a deregulated consumers market”. Innovative products & concepts, newly introduced Biometric teller machines have not only enabled the banks to acquire & retain large customers base but have also facilitated successful penetration into the Rural India. The year 2006 has also been a period of transformational success & achievements for the HMA Group. Strategic planning and initiatives by the group companies, have not only enabled us to offer end-to-end solutions, but also made us capture the untapped market.
Ironically, due to strict policy regime and restrictive norms, the ATM industry that has led to unprecedented growth of the Banking sector, witnessed negative strides of growth & strong upheavals that call for topical solutions. We here at HMA, are taking earnest efforts to chronicle the stories behind, the issues, the challenges faced and evolving future strategies for successful transformation of the banking & ATM industry. The current edition of the newsletter focuses on White Label ATMs - its past, present and future, the increasingly emerging trend of ATM sharing and the future of Kiosks in India, while retaining the traditional focus on the significant achievements of the group companies.
With various initiatives underway and the new product launches planned for 2007, we are confident that the Industry would record an improved performance and capitalize on the newly emerging opportunities & challenges.
While trusting that the readers will warmly receive our magazine, we look forward to valuable comments, feedback on the topics covered and suggestions on the issues that need to be urgently addressed.
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ATM Sharing Networks
Interview : The Future of Kiosks
Latest Technologies (TCDs , Kiosks, StarSUPPORT, StarRECON)
Company News |
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ATMs have become a part of the landscape and a part of our lives. Most people love the convenience they offer. You can walk, or drive, up to a machine any time of the day or night. But, as with most things in life, ATMs are changing. Gone are the days when the only ATMs out there were ones owned by banks or other financial institutions.
Key Drivers for White Label ATMs - ATMs are expensive to own and operate, especially for banks with a limited branch network and human capital already stretched to capacity. Banks have been struggling to balance the demands of increasing customer care touch points while
reducing the cost to serve.
“White-label” or “no-name ATMs” are mostly owned and operated by private companies, not financial institutions. They provide alternative source of cash dispensing vis-à-vis traditional Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) from banks.
White-Label ATMs – Challenges & its Future - The concept of White- label ATMs is widely prevalent in developed countries. North American markets have been more receptive to ATM outsourcing than European markets. In European markets, a larger percentage of ATMs are located at bank branches (onsite ATMs), as compared to North American markets where the share of offsite ATMs is much higher.
In India, as in the European markets, the proportion of onsite ATMs is higher. However, it is believed that opportunities are available in Europe and India to provide ATMs at places where customers can access them more frequently. The US has over 3,00,000 ATMs and Americans carry out more than 1.1 billion ATM transactions a month, which is about 26,000 transactions a minute. At last count, 3,94,500 ATMs were deployed within the United States, of which proximately Independent Sales Organisations (ISO) operates 1,94,000 or 49 per cent. ISOs are the engines that drive ATM placements in off-premise locations. They enter into sales, deal with merchants and distribute the proceeds.
‘White-Label ATM deployers operate on a different business model than that of the banks owning ATM networks,’ says Deepak Chandnani, Managing Director of NCR Corp. India Pvt. Ltd., adding that ‘the key factors governing this model are the number of ATM cards in a geography, convenient locations like retail chains, airports and railway stations, and the affordable charges to the customer’. V K Ramani, President-IT of UTI Bank sums it up, ‘public & private sector banks in India are still in the ATM building/acquisition mode and it would still take some time before they begin limiting the number of ATMs in their network or treat them as a non-core business’. White-Label ATMs are only at the conceptual level in India as of now, citing regulatory hurdles in India to this mode of ATM outsourcing. And also, there are regulatory issues, particularly the ownership of cash dispensed by service provider ATM, which need to be addressed before this concept takes-off in India. With RBI playing a role in the regulation of Banking industry, the regulations, as far as the White-Label ATMs are concerned are far from perfect. The willingness on the part of RBI to shed its reluctance to take a relook at the regulations on white-label ATMs would be like extending an olive branch, facilitating positive vibes in the future of the industry. Till then, white-label ATMs in India will have to wait for its day.
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