"The bank plans to achieve this arrangement by connecting online the transaction switch to the back-end accounting systems at the UTI group companies. A similar arrangement is also being examined by the bank for payment of life insurance premia," UTI Bank's general manager (IT) VK Ramani said.

"To this end, and in order to deliver high quality service to our retail customers, UTI Bank has connected all its 48 distributed branches and ATMs via V-sat network," UTI Bank chairman and managing director, Supriya Gupta said on Wednesday after launching the bank's `base24 transaction switch infrastructue'. This is a scaleableinfrastructure and will be used for launching UTI Bank's range of internet banking services and e-commerce gateways.

The new generation private sector bank has drawn up plans to launch a co-branded debit card with the Citibank, Gupta said.

"UTI Bank plans to invest Rs 20 crore in the next two years to connect all the bank's distributed branches and ATMs on a V-sat network to establish online debit and credit infrastructure facilities for its customers," Gupta said. The transaction switch was put in place by the Financial Software Systems (FSS) Ltd.

The base24 switch has been used to connect 48 distributed branches and ATMs of UTI Bank to MasterCard's worldwide cirrus network and has plan to connect to Indian Banks' Association's Swadhan network and the Visa-American Express netork shortly.

UTI Bank is also planning to earn fee income by providing is utility bill payments through ATMs. "We are exploring this possibility with MTNL, BSES, Hutchison Max, etc. and will also be launching the facility to pay`school fees' using our ATMs, apart from using our network to sell products to and from various corporates," Gupta said. The bank may opt for the electronic cheque payment gateways from FSS partner QSI Payment Technologies, Australia.

UTI bank currently has a customer base of 1.7 lakhs across the 38 branches and 38 ATM networks in the country. With implementation of this technology, it is expected that the bank's deposits would grow by at least 30 per cent and retail banking revenue earnings would go up by 40 per cent during the current year.