Comments
AGS Transact Technologies Ltd (AGSTTL) plans to deploy 1,000 cash recyclers across the country by March 2021 in locations where there is equal demand for both cash deposits and cash withdrawals.
Simultaneously, the company is also seeking to ramp up its Point of Sale (POS) terminal network by 50,000 to cash in on the increased penetration of debit and credit cards and growing e-commerce transactions.
Investment
AGSTTL, which provides end-to-end cash and digital payment solutions and automation technology, will spend about ₹100 crore to deploy the cash recyclers and POS terminals, according to Ravi B Goyal, Chairman and Managing Director.
The company had mopped up $25 million via external commercial borrowing (ECB) in June 2020 as per the RBI’s June 2020 ECB data.
Unlike an ATM that dispenses only cash, recyclers also allow a bank’s customer to make deposits, which are sorted into various denominations and are used for cash dispensing.
PoS terminal is a computerised replacement for a cash register at merchant outlets, where customers can make a digital transaction with their debit and credit cards.
AGSTTL, which received a certificate of authorisation to operate as a white label ATM (WLA) operator in 2014, deployed 119 ATMs as of March-end 2020.
Goyal said his company’s main focus right now is on deploying cash recyclers.
The Reserve Bank of India’s Committee to Review the ATM Interchange Fee Structure had, in 2019, recommended that banks can look at converting their ATMs into cash recyclers or deploy more number of cash recyclers to improve efficiency in ATM operations. The committee was headed by VG Kannan, then Chief Executive of the Indian Banks’ Association.
Currently, AGSTTL has an installed base of about 70,000 ATMs, including under the outsourcing model (the company owns ATMs), managed services model (ownership of ATMs remains with banks), WLA business (ATMs are set up, owned and operated by the company) and outright sales to banks.
The company currently has about 1.75 lakh POS terminals, and this count is expected to go up to 2.25 lakh by March-end 2021.
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.