The four banks involved in the arrangement are Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank, UTI Bank and IDBI Bank. The arrangement will bring together 1,300 ATMs in 100 cities for the use of 6 million debit and credit cardholders of the member banks.

The network will be implemented using Euronet''s software replicating the company''s operations in Europe. Euronet will manage the back-end operations of the shared network, says Loney Antony, managing director, Euronet Services India.

The sharing arrangement comes at a cost of Rs 27 per withdrawal and Rs 10 per balance enquiry, which will be paid by a bank if its customer were to use another member bank''s ATM. "Whether this charge would be passed on to the customer and to what extent would depend on the usage levels in various markets," says Shameek Bhargava, head, ATMs and card products, IDBI Bank.