SBI plans to add 8,000 more ATMs this fiscal

State Bank of India (SBI) said on Wednesday it plans to add another 8,000 ATMs for both accepting and dispensing cash, to ramp up its existing network.

"We have plans to add 4,000 recyclers, which do both cash dispensing and deposits. (Apart from that) we are also planning to install 2,000 cash dispensers and 2,000 cash deposit machines," SBI Managing Director for national banking and Group Executive, B Sriram told reporters in Mumbai.

He said the bank currently has an ATM network of 43,000 of its own, which dispense an average of Rs 2,400 crore in cash per day through 25 crore transactions per month.

Sriram declined to comment on the impact of the recent review of the ATM fee policy, merely saying, "We shall wait for the quarterly results".

But he added that the number of transactions at the bank's ATMs are now "substantially higher", at an average of 25 crore a month.

The RBI last November had capped the number of free transactions a month to five, with charge of Rs 20 for every subsequent transaction, thus ending months of uncertainty.

Sriram was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of a new ATM (automated teller machine) by American electronics company NCR, which controls 47 per cent of the cash vending/ deposit machine market in the country.

NCR claims that its newly-launched machine reduces costs by up to 40 per cent and helps enhance the user experience.

The locally manufactured machine had a global launch on Wednesday and has been developed by the company's research and development centre in Hyderabad, its managing director Navroze Dastur said.

But he refused to disclose any sales target.