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When you visit State Bank of India (SBI) branch next time, you may not need to fill up any forms, count denominations and stand in a queue.
Just carry your ATM/Debit card to transact a host of routine businesses, thanks to ‘green channel counters' and ‘no queue banking' introduced by the bank in over 5,000 branches across the country.
The operation is simple. You just walk into a branch and handle a transaction processing device (TPD) which is similar to point of sales (PoS) machine.
“The machines are being kept in exclusive green channel counters within the branch. A customer has to swipe his ATM/debit card and chose his transaction such as cash deposit, withdrawal and funds transfer from the menu,'' Ms Hannah Rachael Mani, a senior SBI official (Alternative Channels), told Business Line . A TPD is different from an ATM counter as at present there is no facility for cash deposits and funds transfers in ATMs.
Further, as a person is attached to every TPD, one can withdraw money in the desired denominations.
The queue could be avoided as there will be more than one green channel counter in every branch.
“Our objective is to encourage people to shift to swiping mode of transactions using their cards,'' the SBI official said.
From a customer point of view, this helps as there are no pay-in-slips, withdrawal forms, cheque leaves and remittance forms.
ADVANTAGES
“The single most important benefit to customers is time as there will be no queue and an opportunity to undertake paperless banking,'' the SBI official said.
From the bank's perspective, this would save processing time, stationery and also infrastructure.
While an ATM machines now costs about Rs 4 lakh, the cost of a TPD is only Rs 7,000.
The bonus, apparently, will be greater customer satisfaction and image of a tech-driven bank.
As SBI has 14,437 branches, the facility would soon be extended to many more branches.
“Our target is to facilitate at least 10 per cent of transactions in branch through green channel counters,'' Ms Mani said.
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