Comments
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared a proposal to set up an India Post payments bank as a public limited company under the Department of Posts.
The Centre will own 100 per cent equity in the bank, which will have an outlay of ₹800 crore, of which ₹400 crore will be equity and ₹400 crore will be provided in grants, Union Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters after a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The approval comes nine months after the Reserve Bank gave an in-principle nod to 11 applicants, including the Department of Posts, to set up such banks.
Three of those entities, Cholamandalam Distribution Services, Dilip Shantilal Shanghvi and Tech Mahindra have cancelled their plans to open a payments bank.
The India Post Payments Bank will have 650 operational branches by September 2017 in district postal headquarters, said Prasad.
Every post office, including those in rural areas, will have an access point to the bank. Currently, India has 1.54 lakh post offices, of which 1.39 lakh are in rural areas. They will be equipped with micro ATMs to facilitate both cash and digital transactions.
Prasad said the India Post Payments Bank will have additional access points through about 5,000 Automated Teller Machines, mobile and internet banking.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.