Mumbai: State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, on Monday said it is planning to launch contactless debit cards which would enable customers to carry out some transactions without having to enter the pin number.
The bank has sought permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for this.
"Right now, for any card which has to be used, a customer has to put in the PIN. Some exception has to be made as for lower amount deals like buying a Metro or bus ticket, where he can simply show the card and get in," SBI deputy managing director (corporate strategy and new businesses) S K Mishra told reporters in Mumbai while launching a multi-currency foreign travel card.
"So, we have requested the RBI to come up with a limit below which the PIN will be waived. We have suggested that we can have up to Rs. 2,000 as the limit," he said.
Once the regulation comes in, all its future debit cards would be near-field communication (NFC or contactless) enabled, he added.
The bank is currently performing a test-run of such contactless cards at the Chennai and Mumbai metro stations.
SBI and MasterCard on Monday launched a multi-currency foreign travel card which would be available in the US dollar, pound, euro and Singaporean dollar currencies.
A customer will have to pay a one-time fee of Rs. 100 to get the card and the minimum amount that can be loaded is $200.
"The country you are in would be the base currency for the first transaction, but if there is no balance in that account then it can switch over to the other buckets which hold the available balance," Mr Mishra said.
SBI has currently authorised 100 branches across Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore to sell the card. Mr Mishra said the bank would later add other currencies such as Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, Japanese Yen and Saudi riyal to this multi-currency card.
The bank also proposes to make these cards contactless in a month or so.
