New
endeavour:The Postal Department is planning to offer banking services,
particularly in rural areas. —Photo: V. Ganesan
Chennai
General Post Office (GPO) is likely to be first post bank in the State to be
launched early next year. The Department of Posts is planning to set up ‘India
Post Payment Banks’ (IPPB) using the postal network to provide banking services
to people.
Aimed
at providing access to banking services to people particularly in rural areas,
the IPPB will provide a range of services, including direct benefit transfers
and facilitate various payments like old age pension and government subsidies.
The vast network of post offices would be used to eventually even deliver the
payment at the doorstep of customers. Officials of the postal department said
such post banks would function as separate entity and function according to the
guidelines of Reserve Bank of India.
Mervin
Alexander, postmaster General (Chennai City Region), said, “Payment banks will
deal with money remittances of all kinds to people. This could be useful to
people particularly in rural areas who have limited access to banks. But, it
will not provide loans. However, savings schemes and deposits will remain under
post offices at this point of time.” Earlier, core banking network solutions
and postal ATMs were started as part of an initiative to provide banking
services at post offices.
Net
banking and mobile banking will be the next step towards reinventing the postal
services according to the changing trend. The department has also announced a
competition for logo design and tagline for the proposed IPPB. The tagline
should not exceed eight words either in English or Hindi and the best entries
will be awarded with a cash prize of Rs.25,000. The last date of submission is
July 31.
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