State Bank of India (SBI) is planning to deploy low-cost acceptance infrastructure across India over the next two years targeting two crore potential merchants across India in the retail and enterprise segments.

In this regard, India’s largest bank said its subsidiary, SBI Payments, is launching YONO Merchant App to expand the digitisation of merchant payments in the country.

Also read: SBI employees’ body expresses concern over target via digital platform YONO

SBI, in a statement, said the launch of the app is in line with the Reserve Bank of India’s recent announcement of creating a Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) to encourage acquirers to deploy Point of Sale (PoS) infrastructure (both physical and digital) in lesser penetrated areas of the country.

Merchants will now be able to turn their near field communication (NFC)-enabled Android smartphones into payment acceptance devices through a simple mobile app, it added.

Following the deployment, merchants will also be able to access details of transactions, generate reports, and upload transactions for processing, among others, through SBI’s mobile application, besides accepting payments on their mobile device.

Dinesh Kumar Khara, Chairman, SBI, observed that the bank’s YONO platform, which was launched three years ago, has 35.8 million registered users.

“YONO Merchant is a brand extension of this platform aiming to improve user experience and bringing convenience to our merchants.

“In the next two to three years, we are aiming to digitise millions of merchants by upgrading their mobile phones into a PoS device accepting all form factors, accessing value-added services such as loyalty, GST invoicing, inventory management, and connecting into an interface to avail other banking products at a click of a button,” Khara said

Giri Kumar Nair, MD & CEO, SBI Payments, said his company is aiming to grow its merchant touch points multi-fold crossing 5-10 million (50 lakh- one crore) within two to three years.

According to the statement, SBI has partnered with Visa, on the ‘Tap to Phone’ feature, which aims to give the necessary boost to scale up acceptance infrastructure across the country.

TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa, said, “Our partnership with SBI is aimed at empowering more merchants with low-cost, innovative, simple and secure ways of accepting digital payments.

“We are confident that with SBI’s presence around the length and breadth of the country, millions of consumers in smaller cities will be able to pay digitally and conveniently at their nearby stores.”

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