New Delhi: India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) will be launched on 21 August by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The bank will initially open 3,250 customer access points across 650 districts along with doorstep banking facility, communications minister Manoj Sinha said on Wednesday.
By December, all 155,000 post offices in the country will be linked to the IPPB system, he added. “As a result of this, the number of rural bank branches in India will increase from the current 49,000 to 130,000,” he said. The government is set to leverage the reach and trust of post offices to offer doorstep banking services to the unbanked, Sinha added. With an aim to bridge the last-mile gap in banking services, IPPB will deploy around 300,000 postmen and gramin dak sewaks carrying mobile phones and biometric devices to offer doorstep banking to customers, predominantly in rural areas.
“Charges will be applicable when customers call for doorstep banking services. According to a detailed survey, we found that daily wage earners feel it’s better than losing a days’ pay to travel for several hours to carry out a banking transaction,” Sinha added.
For cash transactions (deposit and withdrawal), ₹15 will be charged per transaction up to ₹2,000; ₹25 for transactions more than ₹2,000 but less than ₹5,000 and ₹35 for transactions more than ₹5,000 and up to ₹10,000. Cash transactions above ₹10,000 will not be offered through doorstep banking.
The bank will offer a range of products such as savings and current accounts, money transfer, direct benefit transfer, bill and utility payments, and enterprise and merchant payments.
Customers will be able to access these products and related services across various channels-counter services, micro-ATM, mobile banking app, SMS and phone calls.
According to A.N. Nanda, secretary, department of posts (DoP) the post office account holders will be able to avail additional services provided by IPPB by linking their accounts.
“The IPPB account will provide DoP customers with a complete bouquet of banking services which they may have never experienced before,” he said.