“Where ever you go in India, there is an SBI ATM waiting to serve you.” This is the tagline of a State Bank of India advertisement. ATMs, as an alternative channel for branch-based banking, have come a long way.

“At present, about 60-80 per cent of individual transactions for withdrawals are being handled by ATMs on an average in the industry,” a top functionary of Indian Banks Association (IBA) told Business Line .

The information from individual banks also confirms the trend. “Retail customers now rarely come to branch for withdrawals. In our banks, 87-90 per cent withdrawals are through ATMs,” Ms Renu Challu, Managing Director, State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH), said.

“Definitely, a major chunk of transactions are happening through ATMs now. In urban/metro and semi-urban regions this is very high while in rural areas this may still have to pick up,” said Mr Anil Girotra, Executive Director, Andhra Bank.

In the remote rural areas, there is scope for further expansion of ATM network and usage, he added.

For large transactions, electronic fund transfer or branch-banking is being preferred, he pointed out.

HITS PER DAY

Interestingly, the hits per day in ATMs have also been on the rise. For instance, SBI had recorded a substantial growth in average hits per day in a single ATM, from 554 in March 2010 to 684 in December 2010.

“This has actually resulted in a substantial increase in percentage of total transactions on alternative channels to 27.20 as on December 2010,” a senior SBI official said.

The RBI has also recognised the growing importance of ATMs to general public. “Growth in ATMs, which has been generally on a steady rise in recent years, was 37.8 per cent in 2009-10,” it said in its Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India 2009-10 .

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