The number of ATMs in India has crossed the one lakh mark, according to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). All the banks put together have plans to install an additionally about one lakh ATMs over the next two years, raising the number of ATMs per million population  to about 170 ATMs from 85.

As of October 2012 the total number of ATMs was 1,04,500. Public sector banks and the State Bank group with about 61,500 ATMs accounted for 59 per cent of the ATMs. The private sector and foreign banks put together have about 41,800 ATMs accounting for 40 per cent of the ATMs and the balance 1 per cent represents about 1,150 ATMs that have been deployed by co-operative banks/RRBs.

Almost all the ATMs in the country are part of NPCI’s National Financial Switch (NFS) network which facilitates routing of ATM transactions through inter-connectivity between the bank's systems, thereby enabling ATM/debit cardholders of the country to utilise the services in any ATM of a connected bank.

Nearly 200 million transactions are processed every month in NFS, of which 75 per cent are cash withdrawal transactions with an average ticket size of Rs 3,300. The balance 25 per cent transactions are non–financial transactions.

Besides cash withdrawal and balance Inquiry transactions, NFS supports other Value Added Services (VAS) such as pin change and mini statement through the ATMs. There are plans to increase the VAS through Card-to-Card transfer, cheque book request and statement request through the ATMs.  

ramkumar.k@thehindu.co.in

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