NPCI sets target to install 5.5 mn PoS machines by September

The Dollar Business Bureau

The umbrella organisation for all the retail payment systems in India, National Payments Corporation (NPCI), has set a target to increase three times the number of point of sale (PoS) machines to 5.5 million at merchant outlets in the coming six months from the current number of  2.4 million.

“We are aiming to increase the number of PoS machines to 5.5 million by end-September. Apart from the traditional machines, newer kinds will also be introduced," said AP Hota, Managing Director & Chief Executive on Thursday.

Under the target, NPCI is aiming to introduce 1 million each of conventional, Aadhaar-based and Bharat QR-based PoS machines, he said.

On April 14, the Aadhaar-based PoS machine will be launched, in which by joining a dongle with a smartphone it will turn the phone into a PoS machine, Hota said.

He further said that banks are going to achieve the target of installing one million PoS machines by March 31 this year. Around 9.7 lakh PoS machines have been installed till date, whereas the remaining 30,000 machines will be installed in the coming two-three days.

A major chunk of new machines have been added by some big banks, he said, while adding that a network of 25,000 PoSes is needed for the feasibility of the target.

A rapid increase in the PoS machines is going to help the government in achieving its target to double the electronic transactions to 25 billion by 2018, from the current 10 billion, Hota said.

The Department of Electronics and Information Technology has created a special department for achieving this target of 25 billion in a mission mode and the NPCI is a part of it, he added.