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,'' said bank's chairman and managing director Supriya Guptay.

Introducing the technological advancement made by the bank in recent months, Gupta said that the bank invested around Rs 45 crore on technology and plans to invest a further Rs 20 crore in the next two years to connect all the bank's distributed branches and ATMs on a VAST network to establish an online debit and credit infrastructure facilities to the customers.

The bank's base-24 transaction switch will be connected to both the Master-card-cirrus and theSwadhan networks of ATMS. The transaction switch was put in place by Financial Software Systems (FSS) Ltd as a turnkey project for UTI Bank. The bank has connected 48 distributed branches and ATMS using the transaction switch that has now connected to Mastercard's worldwide cirrus network and has plan to connect to Visa and American Express shortly. UTI Bank currently has a customer base of 1.7 lakh across 38 branches and 38 ATM networks in the country.