Karur Vysya Bank''s debit card

Chennai: Karur Vysya Bank, the Karur-headquartered old-generation private bank, is the latest to offer an international debit card to its customers under its brand, Smart Cash.

The bank has entered into a three-way tie-up for this purpose — with Visa International to power the cards, with UTI Bank to share its ATM network and Financial Software Services and Systems for the switch.

Not long ago the debit card used to be a niche product, but today it is a standard offering from private sector banks. Says Santanu Mukherjee, country manager, South Asia, Visa International: "Earlier ATM cards could be used only at the bank branch''s machine. But today most of the banks share their ATM network with other banks. The number of Visa Electron cards in India today stands at 10 million."

Says a senior UTI Bank official: "We were the first to propagate the concept of sharing the ATM network." Queried about the demand for the debit card as the bank''s branches are mostly located in non-metro smaller cities and towns, Karur Vysya Bank chairman P T Kuppuswamy says: "The usage and demand in the smaller towns for ATMs is good. Our ATMs are located in urban and semi-urban areas."

The bank has so far installed 84 ATMs with interconnectivity at various strategic locations across the country and plans to increase the same to 100 by the end of this year. The debit cardholders of Karur Vysya Bank can use 1,500 Visa ATMs and 6.7 lakh ATMs worldwide.