India’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI) plans to introduce 7,000 voice enabled ATMs across the country for visually challenged customers beginning next month, a senior SBI official said here.
“Out of our 18,500 ATMs, 7,000 will be voice enabled for visually challenged people. We expect to launch these talking ATMs starting next month,” SBI’s General Manager (Alternate Channels) Amitabh Kumar said at a CII-seminar here.
These voice enabled ATMs, customised with headphones and braille key pads, will offer services like funds transfer and downloading of account statements, Mr. Kumar said.
Presently, SBI is testing voice enabled ATMs with its partners NCR and Diebold and expects to make these operational in a month’s time, he said.
SBI plans to install these ATMs in metro, urban and semi urban towns across the country.
“The country has 10.6 million visually challenged people and it is the duty of the banks to help these people to meet their banking needs,” ICICI Bank’s CEO and Managing Director, Chanda Kochhar, speaking at the seminar, said.
