Patna, Dec. 7: It's a busy time for banks this demonatisation season. First, the queue of people to withdraw or exchange money and now a rush by business establishments to get "point of sale" or POS terminals - aka card swipe machines.

The surge is such that commercial banks like the State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank (PNB), which are the market leaders in this segment in Bihar, are witnessing a growth in POS demand. At the same time, they are finding it hard to meet the demand owing to crunch in the supply of such terminals, which are imported from Taiwan and other Southeast Asian countries.

The banks do not sell the terminals, but lease them to merchants for use on nominal charges. They also charge the users of POS facility around 0.75 to 1 per cent amount transacted from debit cards.

Prior to the announcement of demonetisation on November 8, there were just around 13,000 POS machines in use in Bihar, which with an 11 crore population is the second largest state in the country in demographic terms.

Sunil Pandey, the SBI assistant general manager of the merchant acquiring business section, which looks after POS installation, told The Telegraph: "Of the installed POS terminals in the state before demonetisation, our bank has been the market leader with around 10,000 machines. After demonetisation it has received 2,700 applications. Merchants, who earlier didn't want to take them despite being approached, are now themselves visiting us and applying for them."

Sunil said the demand is now coming from small shops, restaurants and business establishments located in far-flung places like Madhepura and Madhubani, where POS machines are a rarity. Hundreds of enquiries about the facility are coming to bank branches at these places.

Mukesh Kumar Gupta, a grocery shop owner from Kankerbagh, who has applied for installation of POS terminal at his shop, said: "We now need it because of the cash crunch among customers."

Currently, three models of POS terminals are available. One works with the help of a telephone landline, while two others, including a portable one, rely on mobile SIM cards for linking the terminals via Internet with bank accounts.

Bank of Baroda had around 1,000 POS terminals operating in the state prior to November 8. The bank's senior manager (marketing), Sanjeev Bhaskar, said: "We have started a campaign to provide more and more POS terminals after demonetisation. We have received 1,400 applications so far. Of them, we have already installed 337 till now. Earlier, the growth was stagnant."

Sanjeev added that Bank of Baroda is striving to meet the demand for terminals as quickly as possible it can by procuring additional terminals.

Similarly, PNB has received around 300 applications for such terminals in the state and its marketing manager Kumar Puranjay said the bank felt proud to have installed 20 POS terminals at toll plazas in the state.

A banker on condition of anonymity said: "POS terminals are being welcomed by everybody. Customers don't need to carry cash and merchants don't need to run to the banks daily to deposit their money."

However, a senior bank official said the Bihar government has not done anything to promote POS among its offices in the wake of demonetisation, unlike Jharkhand where the government has pledged to turn one panchayat in every block cashless.