Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO : 2347-3150

Solar ATM; an Innovative Green Banking Tool for State Bank of India (SBI)
JESNA ASSIS ,
Research Scholar,
P G and research Department of Commerce,
Iqbal College,
Peringammala,
Thiruvananthapuram.

MAJOR DR. U ABDUL KHALAM,

Principal and Research Supervisor
Iqbal College,
Peringammala,
Thiruvananthapuram.

Abstract

Now a days, mere the word “green” gives us so much pleasure in our mind, because we are facing
that much of difficulties due to plastics, and unsustainable development practices. By thinking
from the side of banking industry, it is more adaptable for the bank to run their ATMs using solar
energy. For customers, it is more and more safe way of banking transaction through solar ATMs.
This paper attempts to study the role of solar ATMs as an innovative green banking tools for
State Bank of India, because in India SBI is the leader bank among the Banks in India which uses
solar ATMs.

KEYWORDS: Solar ATM, Green Banking and Sustainable energy.

INTRODUCTION

Money plays an inevitable part in the life of every human being from the side of
a financial enterprise and a crucial and vital role in its every activity. But, now days the word
“green” occupies the prominent role in every enterprise, because people are concentrating on the
word of “eco friendly”. The word “green” itself enquire the position of the word “money” when
we continuous about eco friendless, green is the strategic phenomenon for every business
enterprise especially banking companies.(Singh et al., 2016)

Bank is a financial enterprise, concentrates on accepting of deposits and lending

of money. But in recent times banks are concentrating on green banking to retain the customers.
Green banking means conducting banking activities including primary functions of accepting
deposits and lending money and other utility functions with an objective of reducing carbon
footprints and utilizes the natural resources in effective ways. Among the wide variety of green
banking products and services, Solar ATM is the innovative tool.

Solar ATM, as an innovative financial service, is more beneficial for banks as

well as customers. Solar ATMs are operated using solar panels and the transactions will be started
after detecting finger prints. In India, SBI is the largest commercial bank and is the leader in India
among solar ATM providers.

VOLUME - IX ISSUE - IV, APRIL 2020 Page No : 326

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO : 2347-3150

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main objective of the study is to make a conceptual study on Solar ATM as a green banking
tool for State Bank of India.

METHODOLOGY

The present study is based on secondary data. For collecting secondary data, author used article
on various journals, report of commercial banks, relevant websites, newspapers etc.

Green Banking

Social responsibility is the key indicator of every business enterprises to retain

the customer as well as to attract new customers in order to enhance the sustainable growth of
businessmen. For these companies must concentrate on their business by the way of reducing
carbon footprint, and conserve the environment(Rajitha & Sivakumar, 2019). As green initiatives
more and more financial institutions are concentrating on their banking business eco friendly.

According to Indian Bank Association (IBA 2016), “Green Bank is a normal

bank, which considers all the social and environmental/ecological factors with an aim to protect
the environment and conserve natural resources”. In global scenario, there are a lot of green
practices are happening in banks. These are listed as follows.

Table 01: Green banking Practices in the world

Bank Country Green Practices

Chicago’s Geothermal heating and cooling
United States
New Bank system energy efficient lighting

Halton 30% Energy saving and 70% water

Srilanka
National Bank saving

PallavanGrama
Tamil Nadu Solar powered ATM
Bank
Silicon Valley
United States Funding Green Projects
Bank
New Resource
San Fransisco Personal banking Option
Bank
Organic food business, renewable
Tridos Bank Netherland energy enterprises and nature
conservation Project
Bangladesh Handling climate change
Bangladesh
Bank programmes
Newyork Bank Newyork Clean energy market
Source:(Nath et al., 2014)

Following are the green banking initiatives in India;

VOLUME - IX ISSUE - IV, APRIL 2020 Page No : 327

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO : 2347-3150

Table 02: Green Banking Initiatives in India

Banks Green Banking Initiatives

Issued guidelines for banks to take necessary steps to follow
RBI
green banking methods
1. Organised 300 tree plantation driver
2. Signed Green Pledges of Ministry of New and
Punjab
Renewable Energy
National
3. Established Butterfly Park
Bank
4. It has evolved guidelines for Ozone Depletion
Substances
1. Save 30000 trees through conducting paperless
initiatives
2. e-branches, e-statements, online banking and mobile
ICICI
banking
3. SME Projects in collaboration with Government of
India, World Bank and UNAID
1. Installed 14 windmill
2. Introduced Green Home Scheme
3. Concessional loan for green projects
4. Launched loan product called “Carbon Credit Plus”
SBI
5. Solar ATMs
6. Green channel counter, ATMs, CDMs, Internet
Banking, Mobile Banking, Green Self Service Kiosks,
SMs unhappy scheme, green home loans etc.
HDFC Green PIN at bank’s ATM
Source: CSIR Review Reports of Various Banks

Besides the above banks, every commercial provide green banking services such
as solar ATMs, debit card, credit card, cash deposit services, internet banking, mobile banking,
green home loans, green project loans etc. That is, any products or services provided by the banks
concentrateon sustainability, ethical lending conservation and energy efficiency.

By analyzing the various green banking services, we can find that solar ATM is
the innovative tool.

Solar ATM

Automated Teller Machine (ATM) is an electronic machine for providing

banking services to customers through placing an ATM card in the machine. For conducting this
mechanism eco-friendly and more safely, a new innovative tool called Solar ATMs are set upped.
These ATMs are developed to avoid the problem in using ATM due to power failure. So, it is
beneficial for the customers in rural area.

VOLUME - IX ISSUE - IV, APRIL 2020 Page No : 328

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO : 2347-3150

Working Mechanism of Solar ATM

Solar panels are installed on the roof of ATM’s room and connected electrically
to power grids using an inverter. Batteries are used to store excess power and this power is used
when solar energy is unavailable.

Solar power expert S.P GonChaudhari who has been working on number of
innovative tools and devices operated solar power, has developed a prototype of a biometric
registered solar power run ATM to withdraw cash just by getting their fingerprint scanned.
(Economic Times, Kolkata, 2 April 2019)

Procedure for withdrawing cash is described as follows:

1. A Biometric Registered Finger Scanner is installed on the right side of ATMs. The
customer would just to press on this scanner, and then the machine will detect the user
through this scanner because aadhar card or account holder is registered and linked with
their bank account.
2. A biometric registered finger scanner is installed on the right side of ATMs. After the
finger print is scanned, bank account details of customer are visualized on screen.
3. Besides the account details pictures of currency notes will be shown on screen, and the
customers wants to select carry notes as their choice.
4. Customer need to touch on the chosen currency notes multiple times depending on how
much cash they want to withdraw.
5. Then select “OK” on the screen.
6. After getting cash, balance in bank account will come upon screen.

The major players among Solar ATM providers are given in following table

Table 03: Solar ATM: A Global View

Country Company
Japan Fujitsu
China GRG Banking
USA HESS Terminal Solution
Japan Hitachi Payment Service
USA DIEBOLD INC.
USA Euronet
Source: Press release, Markerwatch

Solar ATM: Indian Overview

People in India are more concentrate on sustainable developments and eco-

projects. Rural people are concentrating more on India’s GDP every year. So enhancing the
spending habit and banking habit among rural people is very much beneficial for India. People in
rural area are less aware about how to use ATM and main problem in operating ATMs in rural
area is power failure. In order to mitigate these problems, solar ATMs are introduced in India.

VOLUME - IX ISSUE - IV, APRIL 2020 Page No : 329

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO : 2347-3150

In India, Vortex Engineering Pvt. Ltd, a Chennai based company has developed
Solar ATM called Gramtelllers. It has a biometric touch pad, a solar panel an 12 hours back up
battery.(Gonchaudhuri et al., 2018)

By comparing with regular ATM, in following ways Solar ATMs are very much essential.

1. It attracts rural people, because it is more user-friendly.

2. It operates in the time of power failure.
3. Operational cost of Solar ATM is 50% of operational cost of regular ATM.
4. It is safer for customers, because transactions are started after detecting finger prints. And
it reduces the ATM robbery.
5. It needs no Air Conditioner and Diesel generator
6. Many of Rural and Semi- rural people are unaware of how to use ATMs.(Singh et al.,
2016)

In India, commercial banks are on starting stage of providing Solar ATMs in rural areas.

Table 04: Solar ATM providers in India

Public Sector Banks Private Sector Banks

State Bank of India ICICI
Bank of Baroda HDFC
Punjab National Bank Axis Bank
Source: (S. Vadrale, 2016)

India’s first solar ATM was launched at Mumbai in 2009 by IndusInd Bank Ltd.
Now India has 100 solar power ATMs across the country. As per the RBI report, 2018-2019,
India has generated 232131 kWh of solar energy through solar ATMs. Numbers of transactions
are increased from 25 Lakhs to 38 Lakhs. SBI was the first Bank in India which introduced solar
ATMs in rural areas.

Solar ATM of State Bank of India

State Bank of India as the largest commercial bank in India, more concentrates
on green banking initiatives, SBI has launched green channel counter from 1 st July 2010. SBI has
developed energy using 10 wind mills in collaborated with Suzlon Energy Ltd. SBI has installed
solar panels to ATMs. Moreover, they engage on;

1. Rainwater harvesting projects

2. Construction of green building, water treatment plants etc.
3. Provide concessional loans to encourage reduction of green house gases.

SBI acquired Best IT Implementation Award 2010, has a signatory investor of Carbon Disclosure
Projects. (Nath et al., 2014)

From the above green banking initiatives, solar ATM is the innovative tool
adopted by State Bank of India. Now SBI has 1200 solar ATMs in the country. (Business Today,
19 September 2018). India’s largest Public Sector lender ie, SBI’s chief financial officer has said
that “It plans to install solar panels on around 10000 of its ATMs in the next 2 years. It has been

VOLUME - IX ISSUE - IV, APRIL 2020 Page No : 330

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO : 2347-3150

focusing on installing solar powered ATMs since 2008. It was the first bank in India to roll out
solar panel based ATMs in rural area of the country in 2008. The next year, it ordered 300 solar
ATMs from Chennai based Vortex Engineering, and the number has now reached over 1200. The
solar panel ATMs are not only cost effective but easily scalable, transferable and adaptable as
well”.

CONCLUSION

Now a days, mere the word “green” gives us so much pleasure in our mind,
because we are facing that much of difficulties due to plastics, and unsustainable development
practices. By thinking from the side of banking industry, it is more adaptable for the bank to run
their ATMs using solar energy. For customers, it is more and more safe way of banking
transaction through solar ATMs. Solar ATM is an innovative green banking tools for State Bank
of India, because in India SBI is the leader bank among the Banks in India which uses solar
ATMs.

REFERENCE

1. Gonchaudhuri, P. S. P., Ghoshthakur, R., & Dutta, A. (2018). A SOLAR POWERED,

BIOMETRIC BASED ATM FOR THE RURAL MASSES OF INDIA: ‘BIO-SOLAR
ATM.’9(8), 1815–1821.
2. Nath, V., Nayak, N., & Goel, A. (2014). Green Banking Practices – a Review.
International Journal of Research in Business Management, 2(4), 2321–2886.
3. Rajitha, R., & Sivakumar, B. (2019). A Study on Neo Banking Trends in India. Shanlax
International Journal of Commerce, 7(S1), 203–206.
4. S. Vadrale, K. (2016). Green Banking Initiatives By Indian Public and Private Sector
Banks. 9(February), 1–14. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305547284
5. Singh, H. K., Prakash, R., & Shukla, K. K. (2016). Energy and Emission Reduction
Potential for Bank ATM Units in India. Open Journal of Energy Efficiency, 05(04), 107–
120. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojee.2016.54010

VOLUME - IX ISSUE - IV, APRIL 2020 Page No : 331