SBI-Oxigen to open 20,000 kiosks by Dec’11

NEW DELHI, INDIA: State Bank of India and Oxygen Services supported company Sahyog Microfinance Foundation today announced joint financial inclusion initiative under which both the companies will open 20,000 kiosk banking centers by December 2011.

The number of these outlets will depend on the success of the pilot that will be initially conducted at 50 centers in NCR and Mumbai region.

Under this tie-up with State Bank of India (SBI), the bank will offer banking services to people by connecting directly to SBI Core Banking System by Oxigen Web retailers. Existing web enabled Oxigen Retailers will be appointed as Customer Service Points (CSPs) of Sahyog Micro Finance Foundation, a Business Correspondent (BC) to SBI, to carry out banking transactions on behalf of the national bank.

“We have over 75,000 outlets across the country and every month, we add 2000 stores. Oxigen has to open up kiosk banking in addition to existing services that these stores offer,” said Pramod Saxena, managing director and chairman, Oxigen.

At present SBI-Oxigen has opened three kiosk banking outlet in villages in NCR region namely at a village near Jangpura, Gurgaon and Noida. As part of the service, biometric readers will record user fingerprints for banking transactions which includes cash deposits and withdrawals, money transfers to other SBI accounts. Customers can also avail auto, home and loans against property and gold. Through these centers, an account holder will also be able to getting NSC and KVP certificates, invest in mutual funds and activate different accounts.

“These outlets will be opened at locations away from urban branches, in and around villages for providing access to banking services such as account opening, cash transactions and some other banking services. The limit of transaction at these outlets will be Rs 10,000. The maximum balance for the accounts opened and being operated by these outlets will be Rs 50,000,” said Sunil Pant, chief general manager, State bank of India, New Delhi.

Oxigen has kept a target of opening 10 million no-frills accounts in next 12-18 months during this pilot project.

Oxigen has also proposed one time registration of existing State bank of India customers at over congested branches of the bank so that these customers can also approach Kiosk banking outlets for transaction within defined limits.

“We will do biometric profiling of existing customer on congested branches of the bank. Then, they will be able to use services being offered at our kiosk banking outlets,” said Saxena.