The country's largest lender, State Bank of India has finaaly selected its partner for the POS terminal joint venture. The bank has selected a consortium of Visa International and Elavon as partners.

They would together be setting up six lakh point of sales (POS) terminals in the country. Point of sales terminals are machines which are used for making payment transactions through debit and credit card.

The bank had earlier finalized the top three contenders for the JV namely Visa, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Global Payments.

The deal size has not yet been disclosed by either partner. Last year ICICI had made a $ 80 million deal while selling its POS terminal network to First Data Corporation. A new entity named SBI Payments Services has been incorporated by SBI for the JV wherein the two partners would be taking up stakes at a premium.

"We have been able to demonstrate our capability to expand the network in Brazil where we have a similar venture in association with banks there. This venture has taken the number of POS terminals in the country from 50,000 to 12 lakh in 12 years," said Utam Nayak, country head for Visa in India. He said that the deal is an indicative of the Visa's commitment to India.

It has been said by sources that SBI would be using these POS terminals as tools to spread financial inclusion in the country.

Elavon US is a wholly-owned subsidiary of US Bancorp and a leading global payments provider.