Hitachi & India’s Govt-owned Bank To Establish Digital Payments Platform

Hitachi Payments is establishing a national digital payment platform with the State Bank of India (SBI), Indian government owned major bank in the country. With the assistance of Indian government’s “Digital India” canvassing, Hitachi will present SBI with solutions inclusive of its Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform “Lumada,” which was installed as the fundamental platform for a major blockchain proof- of-concept (PoC) for supply chain management attempted with Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group last year.

Hitachi Payments is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi in India, a multinational technology group that provides technology – oriented payment solutions for financial institutions. It is reported that there are 55,000 ATMs and 850,000 points of-POS devices in operation in India.

The Indian State-owned SBI is the largest commercial bank in the country with a market share of 23% and a quarter of the total deposit and credit market. It serves more than 420 million customers and manages over 600,000 POS terminals.

The Hitachi Payments-SBI Joint Venture is aimed at accelerating the “digitalisation” of financial services in India by using Lumada and other state-of-the-art technological solutions to expand the digital service business in India. Hitachi Payments reportedly offer services to the digital payment acceptance network of SBI since 2011.

Through the latest partnership, Hitachi payments will pour in 26% in SBI’s subsidiary SBI payments, which is narrated as India’s “largest merchant acquirer in the market in terms of [pos] terminals.”

SBI has been building a blockchain solution for the administration of know-your-customer (KYC) protocols since November 2017 and has also been a founding member of the blockchain for banking research consortium “bankchain.”

Hitachi collaborated with telecom behemoth KDDI this summer to trial a retail coupon settlement mechanism integrates Hitachi’s Hyperledger Fabric-powered blockchain platform with biometrics.

As of February 2017, the multinational industrial giant has been working with the blockchain development company Tech Bureau to integrate a NEM-based platform into hitachi’s commercial point administration system, “PointInfinity.” The latter involves a POS software solution for loyalty programs reportedly used by more than 150 million Japanese members.