In a bid to expand its fee-based income, State Bank of India is planning to place about 1.50 lakh point of sale (PoS) terminals for debit and credit card payments across the country in the next fiscal.
“The present EOIs (expression of interests) are for the purchase of around 1.35-1.50 lakh PoS terminals across the country in the first year of operations or 2010-11 and also for the managed services during the warranty period or the first year of deployment,” SBI said in its Request For Proposal (RFP).
The last date for submission of bids is January 25, it said, adding that, it plans to deploy six lakh PoS terminals in the first five years of its operations. Last year, the bank had floated RFP for selection of joint venture partner for merchant acquiring business and the selection process is at an advanced stage. The merchant acquiring business would be carried out through a wholly-owned subsidiary, which would include acquiring bank identification numbers (BINs) from the schemes, as well managing services for PoS terminals among others. The managed services would include deployment of PoS terminals at customer location, their replacement, merchant training and maintenance among others.