Broadband satellite services provider Hughes Communications India is betting big on the banking sector as public and private sector players look at expanding their network across the country.

“We expect new order booking for the current fiscal to be about $27 million and approximately 15,000 new VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) connections for banks in 2011-12,” the company National Manager, Mr N. Jairam, told PTI.

Financial inclusion is one of the major objectives that the Government is working on and the Reserve Bank of India has envisioned that every village with a population exceeding 2,000 should be covered either by a bank branch or through a business correspondent (agent) by 2012.

“Both public sector and private banks are working towards setting up branches and ATMs in the rural parts. Also, with trends like mobile banking, which uses satellite services, and increasing deployment of retail kiosks, our business is set to grow further,” Mr Jairam said.

The company has already bagged contracts from various banks this year for branch back-up and ATM sites.

“We expect to rollout over 12,000 sites in the 2011-12 fiscal for a variety of banks prominent being Central Bank of India, SBI, ICICI Bank, Canara Bank, Axis Bank and UCO Bank,” he said.

Hughes already has 75,000 VSAT sites in the country spread across managed services domain including banking, lottery, stock broking, retail, defence and media.

The banking and financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector contributes about 10 per cent to the company’s revenues. In India, BFSI contributes about 40 per cent of the company’s revenues.

Hughes expects a 25-30 per cent growth in revenues year-on-year from the banking sector for the next 3-5 years, he said.

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