• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Port Info

• Ships in Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• Business Line
• The Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

M. Ramesh

Chennai , March 7

THE Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) has undertaken a "special study of the ATM deployment and usage in India."

The study will focus on the scale and size of ATM networks, geographic and demographic coverage, service levels, economic issues and emerging trends in ATM usage and will "provide inputs to the RBI for necessary policy formulations."

The IDRBT has sent banks a 25-page questionnaire, comprehensively covering all aspects of ATMs, from the make of the machine to the geographical location to usage pattern and revenue streams.

Today, there are about 20,000 ATMs in India and this number is expected to go up to 30,000 by December. About two crore people use these ATMs. "Tremendous progress has been achieved by a number of banks in improving customer service and access to banking products and services through these channels," notes IDRBT. "The phenomenal growth of ATMs in India is a striking example of the vigorous campaign by banks aimed at customer convenience and satisfaction," it adds.

However, today not all ATMs are accessible to customers of all banks. At present, there are networks of ATMs (Cashtree, MITR, Bancs), formed by a group of banks pooling their ATMs through a common switch. For example, Cashtree is a network of ATMs of Bank of India, Syndicate Bank, Dena Bank, Union Bank of India, United Bank of India and Indian Bank. But the ideal situation is when a person could use any ATM anywhere in the country, no matter which bank's customer he is. The RBI is pushing banks to that situation. The IDRBT study is a part of the effort.

Mr M.V. Sivakumaran, Project Co-ordinator for the `ATM Deployment and Usage' study, believes that the `all ATMs for all users situation' is less than two years away. Towards this objective, the IDRBT set up a `national financial switch' (NFS) in October last year, to which all banks could connect up. At present, NFS has only six members.

Mr Sivakumaran told Business Line that the ATM usage study would be completed in about three months time.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
IDRBT to study ATM deployment, usage

Copyright © 2005, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line