Over the following six months, as much as the primary quarter of FY27, banks have floated requests for proposals (RFPs) for practically 17,350 ATMs, with Union Financial institution of India, Financial institution of India, Canara Financial institution and Indian Financial institution collectively accounting for greater than 8,000 machines.
What seems to be a contraction in India’s ATM base is, in truth, a technology-led transition from typical ATMs to money recyclers. Of the entire RFPs floated, round 13,100 are for money recyclers, indicating a robust choice for recycler-led deployments, which account for greater than 75% of the deliberate installations.
Amongst upcoming money recycler tenders over the following six months, Union Financial institution of India plans to deploy round 2,000 machines, Financial institution of India about 3,700, Canara Financial institution practically 1,500, and Indian Financial institution roughly 1,006.
“We see a good bit of financial institution outsourcing and the RFP cycle arising once more in 2026,” mentioned Anush Raghavan, chief enterprise officer at CMS Information Methods. “The final wave of asset alternative or enlargement was seen in 2023 and 2024. In 2025, we had a rise in ATM interchange charges, which generally results in enlargement of the market and better outsourcing. However 2025 was bookended by numerous disruptions, so we count on 2026 to see extra RFPs and larger outsourcing exercise.”
In 2025, the collapse of one of many largest ATM service suppliers, AGS Transact-which as soon as operated practically 40,000 ATMs-forced a number of banks to both shut down older machines or migrate to new service suppliers. This transition has accelerated the adoption of newer applied sciences, significantly money recyclers, as banks look to make sure continuity of service whereas reducing cash-handling prices and downtime.
An business govt, who didn’t want to be named, mentioned banks are actually being much more deliberate of their deployment technique. “The main target is now not simply on including ATMs, however on deploying smarter machines that may recycle money, scale back replenishment frequency and enhance uptime. After the AGS episode, banks are prioritising vendor stability, expertise functionality and long-term price effectivity over sheer scale,” the chief mentioned.
Business knowledge present a marginal decline in total ATM deployments over the previous yr attributable to this disruption. As of end-November, banks had deployed round 207,000 ATMs and money recyclers throughout the nation, in contrast with about 215,000 a yr earlier, as per central financial institution knowledge. Nevertheless, this slowdown underscores a shift in expertise quite than a retreat from bodily money infrastructure.
