SBI seeks relaxed norms on PIN for card transactions

State Bank of India (SBI), the country's largest lender, has requested the Reserve Bank of India to allow it to waive the condition of mandatorily entering the mandatory PIN for certain transactions.

“We have requested the central bank to (do so) in the case of Tap and Go cards that we are planning to launch. If allowed, Rs 2,000 has been requested by us per transaction and appropriate daily limits would be fixed, subject to approval from RBI/ bank's Board. If this is allowed, we will ensure that all the new debit cards we issue have this feature. We will also look at replacing the old debit cards slowly.” said S K Mishra, deputy managing director, Corporate Strategy & New Businesses, SBI.

SBI is working on this in collaboration with MasterCard, the global payment and technology company. The bank is also working with MasterCard on making its cards Masterpass-enabled, a technology that allows your card to be converted into a digital one.

“Smartphone usage has been growing at a very fast space. This will also allow contact-less transaction. You can transact via mobile phones, with safe storage. We belive this can also be a great innovation,” said Ari Sarker, division president-South Asia, MasterCard.

The bank would be proceeding with digital card innovation only when RBI gives approval for contact-less transactions. Mishra said setting up a system for such services would come at a cost but he believes that with their Point of Sales terminal strength, this would not be a huge challenge.

“We have about 155,000 PoS terminals already in the market, 15 per cent of the total. In this financial year, we plan to add about 100,000 PoS terminals. Therefore, acquiring merchants will not be a problem and it will be easy to roll out these services,” he explained.

On Monday, the bank also launched a Multi-Currency Foreign Travel Card that will support up to 12 currencies. However, currently only four currencies - US dollar, British pound, euro & Singalore dollar — can be loaded in it. SBI is looking at targeting companies and students.

Apart from withdrawal and transaction facility, the card will also provide global emergency, such as-cash delivery, medical and lawyer assistance etc- services to its consumer.

In order to get the card activated, a minimum amount of $200 has to loaded in the card and it will be valid for a period of five years.