Canara Bank ups ATM installation target to 1,000 this fiscal

New Delhi, Jul 26: State-owned Canara Bank has raised its ATM installation target by four times to 1,000 for the current fiscal while Bank of India has scaled back its plans by more than two-thirds.

The 27 public sector banks have plans to set up as many as 15,007 ATMs in the country this fiscal. In April-June, they added 3,037 machines.

All state-owned banks taken together had 1,28,827 ATMs as of June 30, 2015. According to Finance Ministry data, Canara Bank had earlier planned to install 250 such machines in 2015-16, but has now revised the target upwards to 1,000.

In the first quarter, it installed 506 ATMs, taking its total ATMs to 9,039. However, Bank of India has reduced its target to only 729 for the current fiscal from the earlier 2,229.

It installed 708 ATMs in the first quarter and is just 21 short of the new year-end target. As of March 31, 2015, it had 6,771 ATMs. The country's largest lender, State Bank of India, is looking to install 2,000 ATMs in the current fiscal.

The addition will take its total ATMs to 44,317 by March 2016-end. In the first three months, it added 227 such machines.

Bharatiya Mahila Bank is working on a blueprint to add 110 ATMs to take the total to 165 during the fiscal. As part of its financial inclusion initiative, the government has been pushing state-owned banks to deepen ATM presence.

PTI