SBI plans to add over 10,000 ATMs to its network in the next three years to take its ATM network to 25,000. The bank currently has 7,200 ATMs.

For the current year, SBI has identified 2,500 sites to set up ATMs, which include 700 railway stations. On Monday, the country’s second-largest bank, ICICI Bank, had announced that it has received the central bank’s approval to set up 2,500 additional ATMs.

ICICI Bank’s ATM network currently stands at 3,600. SK Sehgal, general manager (IT), SBI said on Wednesday that the bank had seen a rise in the number of hits-per-day on its ATMs. “As compared to 130 hits two years ago, the average hits per ATM is at around 300 now,” he explained.

Average hits of 225-250 per day are considered optimum for ATMs, and this above-average performance has prompted the bank to go in for the expansion, he said.

Though he refused to divulge details on the amount of investment that will go in to the expansion, Mr Sehgal said the prices of ATMs have dropped from Rs 4 lakh a few years ago to Rs 3 lakh now, and that he was confident of getting machines at prices lower than that.

“However, it is not just the cost of the machines, but the cost of real estate, power and maintenance that are the issues,” Mr Sehgal added. SBI also plans to bring 100% of it’s branches on the core-banking platform by March 2008. At present, the bank has about 65% of its 9,600-branch network on the CBS-platform.

“We have 4,000 rural branches, which have been facing a lot of connectivity issues, but we plan to connect them as well via VSAT,” he explained.

Source: Economic times
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