Even as its application to
start a commercial bank is pending, India Post has drawn a massive plan to
install as many as 3,000 ATMs and 1.35 lakh micro-ATMs at the ubiquitous post
offices across the country for savings account holders by September 2015, a top
official has said.
"We will be starting
with three ATMs to be installed in New Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore on February
5 and then ramp it up gradually," postal department secretary Padmini
Gopinath told a select group of reporters here over the weekend.
She said 1,000 ATMs with
the India Post branding will be put in within the first year, which will be
ramped up massively to 3,000 in the next 18 months.
To start with, the ATMs
can be used only by 26 crore savings account-holders who save with the postal
department, but Gopinath exuded confidence that within six months of the
launch, they will get the interoperability permission from the Reserve Bank.
Postal savings are worth
around Rs 6.05 trillion, which is half the savings in the largest lender SBI
and more than double that of the largest private sector lender ICICI Bank.
Through interoperability,
India Post will join the National Financial Switch, which will benefit India
Post account holders to transact at the banks' ATMs and vice versa, she added.
India Post has been
working with software major Infosys on this project, she added.
The micro ATMs will be
handheld devices to be operated at the post office level while the ATM will be
similar to the one operated by any commercial bank, she added.
The postal department,
which has 1.55 lakh post offices over 90% of which are in villages, offers the
savings account to people across the country and pays an interest of 4% per
annum for such deposits. The account offers cheque facility at present.
It can be noted that the
Department of Posts is fighting a very contentious battle to convert itself
into a full-fledged bank, asserting that its reach can help achieve the goal of
financial inclusion.
However, the finance
ministry has expressed some reservations about the idea, while Telecom Minister
Kapil Sibal has exuded confidence of winning over his Cabinet colleagues to get
the go ahead for the 'Postal Bank'.
Source: Business Standard
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