News

India to get national ATM switch

August 24, 2003

MUMBAI, India -- The Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), a group established by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in 1996, is planning to set up a national switch to hook up all of the country's 10,000-odd ATMs.

According to a report in the Business Standard, the Hyderabad-based institute expects to get the nodal switch going in six months.

At a meeting held in Bangalore a few months ago, the information technology chiefs of various banks approved the idea of establishing ATM interconnectivity through a national switch.

The switch will be part of the Indian Financial Network (Infinet), a closed-user group communication backbone for the banking and financial sector. A blend of very small aperture terminal (VSAT) and leased line technology, hosts Infinet will be operated and managed by IDRBT.

The IDRBT expects the cost of transactions routed through the switch to be under 10 rupees (21 cents U.S.) each, due to the high volumes of transactions -- almost 100,000 per day -- expected across the network, according to the Business Standard.

With the Indian Banks' Association-promoted Swadhan Shared Payment Network Services expected to wind up operations by December 2003, banks have been forming their own ATM network-sharing alliances. (See related story India's Swadhan network to end ATM sharing in '04)

Four such alliances have already emerged -- including CashTree, with the Bank of India, Union Bank of India, Indian Bank, United Bank of India and Syndicate Bank, and Cashnet, with Citibank, the Industrial Development Bank of India, Standard Chartered Bank and UTI Bank. (See related stories Euronet in shared ATM network deal with 4 Indian banks and Indian ATM access grows with CashTree shared network)