Kill all debit cards: SBI says debit card has no future, users will need to move to YONO
SBI is willing to get rid of debit cards and rely on more digital banking solutions for the future. SBI wants to rely on its YONO app for future ATM transactions.
In Short
- SBI wants to reduce usage of plastic debit cards for withdrawing money from ATM.
- SBi expects its customers to use YONO service for withdrawing cash in future.
- SBI aims for lesser reliance on debit cards within five years.
Your days of flaunting your debit cards could be numbered if the country's biggest bank decides to do away with it. Yes, the State Bank of India has penned down plans to get rid of the plastic debit cards in the future to withdraw cash out of ATM machines. This phase-out could happen within the next five years and given the massive number of customers SBI caters to, other banks may soon start following its lead and the debit card could be history.
But if debit cards are gone then how will you withdraw cash in the future? Turns out that SBI thinks digital is the way forward and its customers will soon rely mostly on its YONO app to withdraw cash out of an ATM machine. The technology is already here but SBI wants more and more customers to use the service.
"It is our wish to eliminate the debit cards, and am sure we can eliminate them," Chairman Rajnish Kumar said, speaking at the annual Fibac Monday, as stated by a PTI report. SBI's idea is to reduce the reliance on decades-old technology and instead rely more on modern-era technologies. With digital-based transactions becoming more popular every day, using it to withdraw cash from the ATM could make for more convenient banking services.
SBI introduced its YONO service for its customers not long ago in the country. Wonder what's YONO? Well, it stands for 'You-Only-Need-One' and is SBI's online service for digital banking and services. With YONO, SBI customers can basically access all of their card services digitally.
Ever since it was introduced, SBI also rolled out almost 68,000 YONO Cashpoints across the country, which are basically ATM outlets that can support digital ATM transactions. The idea behind this is to use your mobile phone to withdraw cash and hence not rely on ATM cards always.
But how will SBI achieve this is a bigger mystery, given that around 90 crore of its customers rely on the old yet trusty debit card. It seems that SBI would slowly start marketing the feature and get its customers habituated to the new digital system over the course of time.
Will the debit card won't exist anymore in future? For now, SBI says that within a period of five years, it expects its YONO service to catch up and that the debit card will only be a 'stand-by' option.