Despite India’s government implementing schemes, such as the demonetisation of all 500 and 1000-rupee notes in 2016, to encourage the country to go cashless, there is still high demand for banknotes. According to the Global Cash Index, cash continues to hold a significant role in Indian culture and is seeing growth rather than decline – cash is still very much king in the region.

Commenting on the popularity of cash in the region Marcus Tiedt, Sales & Marketing Director of Innovative Technology Ltd (ITL) said, “With over a billion people living in India a large percentage of them still transact in cash and are not part of the official tax network. Also, the infrastructure required to go cashless needs years to catch up and be reliable, and therefore a cashless society is not currently achievable in the short term. Working closely with Chevend, our Trading Partner in the region for the past four years, we are meeting market and consumer demand to ensure that cash can be used as the preferred method of payment both securely and efficiently.”

Andy Bassam, VP of Customer Support for ITL commented, “We foresee that our latest products with the added benefit of Spectral technology will begin to see more and more demand.  We work hard with Ammaar, who heads up our partnership at Chevend, to ensure that we optimise datasets and acceptance rates on our products. The National Bank release banknotes on a yearly basis and notes in circulation can wear quickly, so keeping datasets up to date is imperative. Another major challenge in India is that the banks do not allow customers to redeem damaged and stained banknotes. This issue can be overcome by using ITL products that utilise our Spectral Technology to ensuremachines do not accept banknotes that have been damaged or stained by anti-theft devices.”

CHEVEND TECHNOLOGIES PVT. LTD based in India, are the proud pioneers of the Automatic Vending Concept in India and although vending is their core competence, their payment systems division has grown in prominence and turnover over the years and they provide payment systems to customers within the Kiosks and Banking sectors.

Commenting on the Trading Partnership, Ammaar Huseini, Director at Chevend said, “We have been collaborating directly with ITL to provide their state-of-the-art cash validation products to customers throughout the whole of India since 2016. We also have an office in Dubai, so are helping to extend ITL’s reach throughout the Middle East. We offer support for a wide range ofproducts including the NV9, NV11, NV200 and BV20 where uptake in the region is substantial giving Innovative Technology significant share of the vending market.  We are delighted to have secured a significant tender for the NV10 compact, stackerless banknote validator recently to be used in government payment terminals. Looking forward, we are beginning to promote ITL’s Spectral range of note validators and recyclers to help businesses in the region reject ink-stained banknotes.”

Concluding Andy said, “We have a really good relationship with Chevend, and with Ammaar’s comprehensive local knowledge in the region I look forward to many more years working in partnership together.”