NCR witnesses slow growth post note ban

ATM manufacturer NCR on Monday said the controversial demonetisation exercise impacted its business in the country with revenue growth slowing down to 8-10 per cent from the earlier up to 18 per cent levels.

The company, which is the largest deployer of automated teller machines in the country with over 1.06 lakh of them in force, said banks were not going in for new machines and it was majorly replacements of older machines which helped its revenues.

"That (revenue growth slowdown) is largely because of the impact of demonetisation," its country managing director Navroze Dastur said. Exuding confidence that the revenue growth will return back to normalcy "in a quarter", Dastur said typically, the company used to ship out over 25,000 machines every year, which slowed down to 16,000 in fiscal year 2016-17 as a result of the demonetisation exercise.

It can be noted that the move to ban Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes in a surprise move on November 8, 2017 has impacted a slew of sectors and is being attributed by some watchers for a slowdown in the economic growth to 6.1 per cent in January-March 2017 period.

The company, however, welcomed the move saying it is indeed better to go less cash but added that no economy can go cash less. The US-based executive said banks continue to order machines but are a bit ‘cautious’.