Hitachi Working With India’s Largest Bank SBI to Form Digital Payments Platform
Japanese tech conglomerate Hitachi is partnering with one of India’s oldest and largest bank - State Bank of India (SBI) - to develop a new digital payments platform. As part of this collaboration, Hitachi’s wholly owned subsidiary Hitachi Payments will be working with SBI Payments for a digital payments platform having applications in mass transit roadways and Point-of-Sale (PoS) solutions.
According to the official press release, Hitachi Payments will invest 26% into SBI Payments Private Ltd. Hitachi has been working with the state-owned bank since 2011 as SBI technology partner for card and digital payments since 2011.
More specifically, Hitachi will be leveraging its experience and expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics to introduce its native IoT platform “Lumada”, to the Indian payments sector.
In the official announcement, Hitachi said: “Hitachi will provide wide range of services contributing to “Digital India” by creating innovative solutions with ‘Lumada’. With this joint-venture, Hitachi will accelerate digitalization of financial services in India by linking up digital payments platform to state-of-the-art digital technologies of “Lumada”, and also will provide solutions for mass transit sector and e-commerce businesses.”
Hitachi Payments currently manages around 55,000 ATMs and 850,000 POS devices in India. The State Bank of India is currently serving around 420 million customers, with more than 6 million PoS terminals around the country. Hitachi Payments currently manages nearly 70% of SBI’s current network.
While commenting on this new joint venture, SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar said: "At 2,500 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. In Hitachi Payments, we see a long-term business and technology partner that has the ability, capability and willingness to develop the broad vision of SBI which is tied into the success of the digital payment imperatives of the country. SBI also believes that the future of the payment services lies in the capability of the JV to develop new digital acquiring strategies for the benefit of its consumers.”
Hitachi President and CEO Toshiaki Higashihara reciprocated similar optimism saying: "Along with the accelerating movement of digitization around the world, Hitachi aims to improve people's lives by providing digital solutions in India and other countries. By establishing the joint venture with SBI, Hitachi will further contribute to the development of digital payments in India by building a state-of-the-art digital payments platform and leveraging SBI's robust customer network."