SBI to come out with debit cards by Dec

CHENNAI: State Bank of India is tocome out with debit cards, to be issued free of cost to all its customers, bythe middle of December this year, a top executive of the bank said onFriday.Stating that this was a major retail initiative to enhance customerconvenience, P N Venketachalam, managing director and group executive, SBI, toldreporters here that all the existing ATM cards issued to customers would beupgraded into debit cards cum ATM cards."All the new cards issued will bedebit cards which can be used as ATM cards," he said.Veketachalam saidthat the bank also planned merchant aquisition initiative, whereby SBI wouldsettle various debit card transactions directly in select merchantestablishments. "We expect to launch this initiative by january next," hesaid.Over 1138 ATMs of SBI would soon be networked, he said, adding thatanother 1000 would be added to the network in the next 12 months at a cost of Rs100 crore.