SBM steps to weed out fake notes

Meanwhile, on Friday, Reserve Bank of India Regional Director B Srinivas inaugurated, via online route, 75 new ATMs of SBM across Karnataka from the head office in City. With this, total number of ATMs installed by the bank has increased to 521, of which 453 are in Karnataka and 132 are in the City.

The ATMs provide value-added services like utility bill payments, card-to-card funds transfer, insurance premium payments, recharging of pre-paid mobiles, donations to select temple trusts.

In line with the policy of leveraging technology to provide the latest service to customers, the bank has enabled the payment of direct taxes to the central government via e-mode or online system in all SBM branches. The first bank in Karnataka to network all its branches under a core banking platform in 2005, SBM has since introduced various services like electronic funds transfer, internet banking, and mobile banking.

On efforts the banking sector in the State is making to reach out to the common man, Srinivas said, “Bangalore has progressed well in the area of financial inclusion and I am optimistic that as Karnataka has a wide network of banks, the state will be able to achieve the financial inclusion by 2010 itself, a year ahead of schedule.”