New Delhi: Five banks (Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Indian Bank, UTI Bank and Global Trust Bank) have tied up for sharing their ATMs spread across India. A memorandum of understanding for the tie-up has been signed by the five banks.

The network of the five banks has about 1,700 ATMs, which will go up to 3,000 spread across 140 cities by the end of this fiscal.

A few other banks are expected to join the network shortly, a PNB press release said. There are 3.5 million cardholders of the five banks, which is to increase to 5 million by March 2004.

The Reserve Bank of India's arm, Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology, is providing the dedicated network for the ATM network connectivity. The Chennai-based Financial Software and Systems has been appointed as the application service provider.