All banks irrespective of being ATM holders or not will now be able to be a part of the National Financial Switch (NFS), said the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) under whose umbrella NFS operates.

The idea behind this step is to let even non scheduled cooperative banks as well as regional rural banks get access to the NFS via their sponsor banks. They can also thus get access to the ATM network of more than 78000 all over the country, said chief executive and MD of NPCI, Mr A P Hota.

He said that the facility was previously available only with scheduled banks with RTGS facility.

"This is a step forward to inclusive growth of financial services and serving customers of the smaller banks, UCBs and RRBs," Hota said.