The National Payments Corporation of India, along with some private and public-sector banks, has embarked on a pilot project to test the feasibility if several services could be offered by non-home bank ATMs. Bankers have also sought the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) approval to roll out the same if the results of the pilot projects are positive.

Banks now offer services such as paying telephone bill, electricity bill, DTH recharge at the ATMs. In particular, banks have approached RBI to allow cash deposits at ATM to be made inter-operable. “Several banks have cash deposit facility at ATMs that are not inter-operable as yet. So, only the banks’ consumers can use the same. We have sought RBI’s permission to make it independent now. A request has also been sent to make bill payment also interoperable,” said an industry official who is familiar with the development.

The official added banks are also working at making features such as cheque book request, statement requests and card-to-card transfer inter-operable.

Some banks have already started cash transfer between two accounts of different banks via debit card. Currently, banks have started this feature across Union bank, Andhra Bank and YES Bank.

Aspy Engineer, president and country head (ATM management and currency chest) at YES Bank, believes making all the transactions at ATMs independent of the bank will be a game-changer. “Since the operational profitability of the ATMs has been under pressure, the idea is to increase the transactions that happen across ATM branches to boost volumes and make it profitable.”