India’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has entered into a strategic partnership with Hitachi Payment Services India, in a bid to establish a card acceptance and digital payment platform.
The bank revealed in its communiqué that it will have the majority stake in the partnership. It, however, did not disclose much detail on the shareholding.
Further, the joint venture will offer various payment options to consumers, emphasizing on the launch of a nationwide card acceptance infrastructure, quick response (QR) code acceptance, Unified Payment Interface (UPI), mass transit sector and e-commerce businesses.
“At 2,500 point of sale (PoS) per million people, the penetration of payment acceptance infrastructure is still low. With this JV, we aim to grow the payment landscape by providing a frictionless modern digital payment platform to our customers,” said Rajnish Kumar, chairman, SBI.
“This mutually benefiting partnership with the financial giant SBI will allow us to widen our footprint pan India,” said Bharat Kaushal, Managing Director, Hitachi India.
Kumar from SBI added that the lender will leverage its wide branch network and engage relationship with corporates and the government to offer a technology-led payment service in the country
