Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd., State Bank of India & Coca-Cola India partner towards Digital Solutions & Literacy Initiative

  • Aims to transform India’s Payment Ecosystem by enabling over 2.6 million retailers on digital payment solutions by 2020

Mumbai, January 3, 2017: Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd (HCCBPL), State Bank of India (SBI) and Coca-Cola India Pvt. Ltd. (CCIPL), today announced a strategic partnership to enable over 2.6 million retailers and 5000 distributors in conducting business transactions digitally.

Ms. Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairman, State Bank of India and Mr. T. Krishnakumar, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer – HCCBPL. & Region Director – South Asia, signed an MOU, which entails initiating the digitization process with retailers by onboarding them into the SBI’s digital payment options such as Buddy P2P, Buddy Merchant App, SBI Pay. To aid a smooth transition process, along with SBI authorised trainers, Coca-Cola will provide training to the retailers on new and evolving digital business transaction solutions

Speaking at the MoU signing ceremony, Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairman, State Bank of India said, “We are happy to announce this joint endeavour by two leading organisations in response to our Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision for a Digital India. Our digital payment platforms such as Buddy, SBI Pay and State Bank Collect provide our customers easy-to-use and convenient modes of transactions. They also act as the tip of the spear for onboarding consumers and merchants to our larger range of financial products.”

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Krishnakumar said, ““We recognize and support the Government’s vision of “Digital India” centered on making India a digitally empowered economy. We have been forerunners in the digital solution space and while all of our payment to Suppliers and more than 90% of our collections from our partners are digitized, we propose to extend this facility to every retailer in the marketplace. Our partnership with SBI is a step forward in this direction.  The digital payment solutions in business transactions will help further strengthen our retail chain ecosystem covering over 2.6 million retailers and 5000 distributors and will substantially reduce the dependence on cash. There is huge potential in e-commerce and m-commerce space, and this partnership between HCCBPL and SBI will go a long way in capitalizing on these fast growing opportunities”.

Mr. Venkatesh Kini, President, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia said, “As India moves towards digitization, it is critical that the country’s un-organised retail sector adopt digital payment systems which will provide them an opportunity to further grow their businesses. To bridge the digital gap for small retailers we have partnered with State Bank of India. This will empower and equip small retailer businesses move from cash based to digital transactions which has the potential benefit of making payments more secure and transparent. The inclusion of this new module in our ongoing Parivartan training program, will help retailers to acclimate to digital payments effectively to increase their money management and business skills while establishing a strong foundation for economic development.”

HCCBPL and CCIPL will leverage “Coca-Cola University on Wheels” (CCU) under its “Parivartan” program to train the retailers and distributors on handling digital payments. The training will integrate SBI’s developed digital payments module into the training capsule. Additionally, HCCBPL, SBI and CCIPL will create a customized payment solution for retailers and distributors selling Coca-Cola products in India.

About Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt Ltd

Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd, is company owned bottling operation and the largest bottling partner of The Coca-Cola Company in India. Part of The Coca-Cola Company’s Bottling Investment Group (BIG), HCCBPL is responsible for the manufacture, package, sale and distribution of beverages under the trademarks of The Coca-Cola Company. The company has a national footprint with over 20 company owned and 09 co-pack plants. With a network of over 5000 distributors and over 2.1 million retail outlets, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd.’s endeavor is to ensure products availability within the arms reach of consumers.

HCCBPL has always placed high value on good citizenship and to that end, is supporting communities by enhancing skills of rural youth through Career Development Centre, improving the lives of communities around its bottling plant by very focussed intervention in the areas of access to safe drinking water, sanitation and promoting sustainable agriculture through Integrated Watershed Management Projects under Public-Private-Community partnerships.

In the recent past, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. has joined hands with Government of Maharashtra and Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd. (JISL) to support farmers growing oranges in the state of Maharashtra. The Ground breaking ceremony took place on 29th December, 2016, in the presence of the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra. Under this initiative, farmers will be given training on usage of Ultra High Density Plantation (UHDP) technique to boost orange yield of Mandarin variety. UHDP is a modern agricultural practice that ensures higher yield of agri-produce per acre of land and within a time span, compared to traditional methods of farming. Project “Orange Unnati” seeks to unlock prospects of leveraging “NOGA” brand (Nagpur Orange Grower Association) of Oranges and is estimated to benefit 5,000 farmers.

For further information on HCCB’s operations and its products, please visit www.hindustancoca-cola.com.

About State Bank of India

State Bank of India (SBI) is the largest commercial bank in India in terms of assets, deposits, branches, customers and employees. The Company has well entrenched Domestic, International and Treasury Operations. State Bank Group consists of SBI and five associate banks. As on March 31, 2016, the group has an extensive network, with over 22,000 branches in India and 198 offices in 37 other countries across the world in all time zones. It has a strong network of 59,000 group ATMs. With more than 4.4 lac touch points through branches, CSPs, Points of Sale and ATMs, it caters to a customer base of more than 30 crore.  Market leader in Online, Mobile and Social Media Banking, SBI is spearheading the cash-less revolution in India. SBI’s non- banking subsidiaries / joint ventures are market leaders in their respective areas and provide wide ranging services, which include investment banking, life insurance, general insurance, mutual funds, credit cards, factoring services, security trading, etc making the State Bank Group a truly large financial supermarket and India’s financial icon.

About Coca-Cola India

Coca-Cola India is one of the country’s leading beverage companies, offering a range of healthy, safe, high quality, refreshing beverage options to consumers. Since its re-entry in 1993, the company has been refreshing consumers with its beverage products – Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Zero, Diet Coke, Thums Up, Fanta, Fanta Green Mango, Limca, Sprite, Sprite Zero, Maaza, VIO flavoured milk ‘Almond Delight’ and ‘Kesar Delight’, Minute Maid range of juices, FUZE Iced tea, Georgia and Georgia gold range of hot and cold tea and coffee options, Schweppes, Kinley and Bonaqua packaged drinking water and Kinley Club Soda. The Company along with its bottling partners, through a strong network of over 2.6 million retail outlets, touches the lives of millions of consumers, at a rate of more than 500 servings per second. Its brands are some of the most preferred and most sold beverages in the country – Thums Up and Sprite – being the top two selling sparkling beverages.

The Coca-Cola India system provides direct employment to 25,000 people and indirect employment to more than 150,000 people. The Coca-Cola system in India is contributing in its own small way to building sustainable communities through community initiatives like Support My School, VEER, Parivartan and Unnati and by reducing its own environmental footprint. For further information on the company’s India operations and its products, please visit: www.coca-colaindia.com. Follow us on twitter at twitter.com/CocaCola_Ind, or on facebook.