HMA arm ties up with Triton for ATM re-entry

BUSINESS LINE

THE HMA group on Monday said that it is re-entering the Indian ATM (Automated Teller machine) market through the alliance that its subsidiary, CashLink Global Systems has formed with Triton of the US.

Addressing the media, Mr. Harish K Murthy, CMD of the HMA group said, “The ATM story in India is not yet over. As the market matures, banks will want to replace existing ATMs with those that are less expensive and have lower running costs.”

Interestingly, the HMA group had recently got out of the joint ventures it had with another ATM vendor, Diebold. Asked if coming back into the market with another partners did not make clients uncomfortable, Mr. Murthy clarified that the group would now be able to offer systems that can be customized to client.

CashLink said that the current market size of 15,000 ATMs would grow to 60,000 in five to ten years now. According to Mr. Murthy, ”We would like to have installed 3,000 ATMs in the next three years.”

He added that the relationship with Triton was currently in distribution and that once the market grows, the Indian company would look at assembling machines in India.

In its media presentation, CashLink explained that the range of ATMs from Triton had features such as requiring only a 0.5 KVA power back up as against the usual 2 KVA that was normally required. Further, it allowed customers to choose cassettes (ATM parts that hold the currency) with capacities ranging from 600 notes to 2,600 notes to 3,000 notes. It added that Triton’s ATMs allowed cashing of cheques instead of requiring banks customers to interact with tellers.