What turns Tata Payment bullish on white label ATMs?

MUMBAI: Tata Payment Solutions (TCPL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Communications, has signed up DBS Bank, Federal Bank and Sholapur Janta Sahakari Bank for its Indicash White Label ATM solutions.
"We are looking to leverage scale of our network for offering pioneering models for banks and third party advertisers," said Sanjeev Patel, CEO of TCPSL. "We are getting an encouraging response from the banks with close to 10% of the Indicash While Label ATM (WLA) portfolio already being leveraged by banks under this mode."

"This will be a big growth driver for us in the next 2-3 years with many banks looking at WLA as a viable model to increase their reach economically through operational expenses rather than a capital expenditure," he said.

White Label ATMs does not have a label of any bank. Here, there are three inherent parties: the non-bank corporate entity like Tata Payment, authorized ATM network operators/card payment network operators like RuPay, Visa or MasterCard and a sponsor bank for cash management, funds settlement as well as customer grievance redressal.

TCPL said it is also in advanced stage of talks with other four-five banks, but it didn't disclose further details.

TCPL’s Indicash WLA Network has crossed the 8000 ATMs Milestone, with more than 50% year-on-year growth, the company said. It now aims to cross 10,000 WLA deployment by the end of current fiscal.

According to Patel, Tata Payment has been spearheading ATM accessibility in the country empowering over 30 million Indians across 20 states; 4600 towns and villages with neighborhood ATM convenience.

India, a country of 1.20 billion population, lags developed markets when it comes ATM deployment per million of population. The country has 180 ATMs per million of population compared with 1,390 in the US, 1268 in the UK, 589 in Singapore, 469 in China and 1638 in Australia, show an industry data.

ATM penetration is low in India. Deployments need to be ramped up, experts said.