Mumbai: The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is making fast progress with the rollout of the uniform national payment card and launched the first such card with a regional rural bank in Varanasi. "We have launched the first gramin bank ATM card with the Kashi Gomti Samyut Gramin Bank in association with Union Bank of India in Varanasi today. The card is called RuPay Gramin Card," NPCI Managing Director and Chief Executive A P Hota told PTI here. This is a big step in narrowing down the technological gap between the major scheduled banks and regional rural lenders, he added. The Kashi Gramin Bank customers can use the card across any of the 87,000-odd ATM networks in the country, Hota said, adding this is the first gramin bank ATM card in India. Hota further said being sponsored by the Union Bank (as RRBs don't have permission from the RBI to make real time settlements), the RuPay Gramin Card will have the logos of the NPCI, Kasi Gramin Bank and the Union Bank. The card was launched by Union Bank Chairman and Managing Director M V Nair, a bank release said here. On May 14, NPCI had launched the first RuPay Card with the Maharashtra-based urban cooperative bank, Gopinath Patil Partik Janata Sahkari Bank. This also is an ATM card and not a debit card, Hota informed. On why the NPCI is launching only with cooperative and rural banks and not debit cards with commercial banks, he said, "nationalised and private sector banks have different set of demands. Mainly they want debit cards, which we are not in a position to offer now. We are still working on the technology platform the merchant payment gateway for this."