A probable consortium of State Bank of India, Visa Inc and Elavon Inc could not take a concrete shape, for entering merchant acquiring business. Differences over the sharing of technology being the culprit of the outcome. The proposal about it was made in May 2010.

"The State bank of India has informed BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) that the bank has since cancelled the negotiations for establishing a joint venture entity with Visa Inc and Elavon Inc for conducting the merchant acquiring businesses," said the bank.

A senior SBI official said, "The board formally decided to call off the joint venture negotiations as Visa did not want to share technology expertise in building the business, the State Bank of India wanted to build the technology in house."

At present the leading private sector lenders ICICI Bank and Axis Bank are leading the way in the merchant acquisition space.