SBI launches pre-paid card, expects to garner CASA deposits

Moneycontrol Bureau

India’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) on Tuesday launched a pre-paid card christened as "SBI Smart Payout Card" for students, employees, workers, and contract labourers. Customers don't need to open any bank account to subscribe to these cards.

"The exercise is aimed at financial inclusion. It will help garner low cost current and savings account (CASA) deposits. Using such cards customers can transfer money from one place to the other. Especially for contract labourers who work in urban areas, it is very useful," said R K Saraf, deputy managing director – Corporate Strategies & New Businesses, SBI.

According to Saraf, the KYC (Know Your customer) norms are also relaxed here. This will enable the product to reach its target audience.

For example, a customer needs a basic proof of identification. Any KYC compliant SBI customer can introduce a new customer. An employer too can endorse its employee's application. These cards can be used in all existing SBI group ATMs and 65,000 points of sales (PoS) at free of cost.

The pre-paid card bears a charge of Rs 9-20 per transaction in case of other banks' ATMs. The pre-paid card can be loaded with Rs 10,000 at a time with a monthly cap of Rs 25,000. SBI will charge Rs 102 as fees for issuing the card with a validity of 10 years.

"We will abide by the standard RBI norms on KYC. However, we will not impose any stringent norms. We are also in talks with companies (SMEs) to sell cards among their employees. Companies can even give salaries via such cards," Saraf told reporters here in Mumbai.

Currently SBI has a base of 11 crore debit cards while the base expands to 13.6 crore for the entire SBI group. On standalone basis, SBI is adding around 15-16 lakh debit cards every month. At group level, it is about 20 lakh.

saikat.das@network18online.com