UNITED BANK OF INDIA 11, HEMANTA BASU SARANI, KOLKATA-01

FEEDBACK BASED ON SURVEY

FEEDBACK BASED ON SURVEY ON MERCHANT ACQUIRING BUSINESS THROUGH POINT OF SALE DEVICE. – SEMI URBAN

20.07.2016: After conducting a survey on the semi- urban market of Chandannagar, Serampore, Liluah on Point of Sale Device. Most of the merchants, who have one or more than one POS Device have the device of HDFC bank in 90-95% of the cases, lately comes Axis Bank and ICICI Bank in Private Sector Banks. In Public Sector Banks comes SBI and IDBI Bank respectively, who share very minimal part of the market. Here the PRIVATE SECTOR goes way ahead in terms on customer feedback, where they have nil or very few complaints that too negligible. The charges that the Private banks take from them, such as HDFC takes not less than 1.5% of MDR where as the Public sector Banks such as SBI takes very less MDR compared to (HDFC, AXIS, ICICI) BANKS, but still the merchants prefer the private banks over public banks, as the service of the private banks are very good compared to that of the public banks, where they lack very much. After sales service and good behavior from the branches is what the merchants want from the bank they are doing business with, many merchants who are using POS Device of both a Public bank and a Private Bank, say that they will give up with the Public Sector Bank just because they are very difficult to cope with.The public sector banks such as SBI, IDBI and others, to get services from them the merchants have to docket at first to avail service. But the Private Banks especially HDFC Bank who is leading this part of business gives a scheduled service to all the merchants and when required gives emergency services as well. They have some special Helpline Numbers for this service which they have given specifically to the merchants.Now , the merchants who do not have POS Device the small or medium sized businessmen who have decent amount sales, such as, (medium sized grocery shops, medium sized garments shops, confectionery shops) have good amount of sales but the customer’s demand to pay through debit card fluctuates or there is

no demand to pay through debit card, even if there is demand to pay through debit card they encourage their customers to withdraw the amount from the nearby ATM machine and then pay the billed amount. Some of them don’t want to go through more banking process, as to them it is tiresome and they don’t want to go through any more vines of the banking system.The confectionary market is huge in Chandannagar and Serampore and due to innumerable number of occasions such as festivals, private ceremonies and other occasions; their business won’t die out easily. This market is untouched in POS segment and some confectioners have booming business having 7-8 branches of their own, naming some Surya Kumar Modak, Mrityunjoy Sweets etc. have a distinct market of their own.*With our bank conducting survey other private sector banks are also conducting similar surveys to touch those market parts still missed by them (some of the merchants have said during the survey). This was my feedback on the survey conducted by me in this region.

ARIJIT BHATTACHARYAINTERN (PUBLIC RELATIONS)08.07.16-25.07.16