National Financial Switch
 |
|
| Operating area | India |
|---|---|
| Members |
90 Direct Members |
| ATMs | 188600 |
| Founded | 27 August 2004 |
| Owner | NPCI |
90 Direct Members
228 Sub-Members
52 RRBs
National Financial Switch (NFS) is the largest network of shared automated teller machines (ATMs) in India. It was designed, developed and deployed by the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) in 2004, with the goal of inter-connecting the ATMs in the country and facilitating convenience banking. It is run by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
The first ATM in India was set up in 1987 by HSBC in Mumbai. In the following twelve years, about 1500 ATMs were set up in India. In 1997, the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) set up Swadhan, the first network of shared ATMs in India. It was managed by India Switch Company (ISC) for five years, and allowed cardholders to withdraw cash from any ATM in the network, for a fee if they did not have an account with the bank that owned the ATM. In 2002, the network connected over 1000 ATMs of the 53 member banks of the association. The network was capable of handling 250,000 transactions per day, but only 5000 transactions, worth about ₹100,000, took place each day. In contrast, ICICI Bank's network of about 640 ATMs handled transactions worth about ₹20,000,000 each day. After the contract with ISC expired, IBA failed to find a bidder to manage the operationally uneconomical network, and shut it down on 31 December 2003.
After the collapse of Swadhan, Bank of India, Union Bank of India, Indian Bank, United Bank of India and Syndicate Bank formed an ATM-sharing network called CashTree. Citibank, the Industrial Development Bank of India, Standard Chartered Bank and Axis Bank formed a similar network called Cashnet. Punjab National Bank and Canara Bank also created such networks.
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