India Post Payment Banks was launched today by PM Modi at Talkatora Stadium. The mechanism of India Post Payment Banks includes the use of 1.55 lakh post office branches to provide banking and financial services in rural areas.
The IPPB is expected to have 650 branches and 3,250 access points across the country. By the end of this year, that is 31st December 2018, the Government intends to link all the 1.55 lakh post offices to IPPB.
IPPB operations were started in January, 2017 with two branches pilot branches at Raipur and Ranchi. The program is expected to offer 4 percent interest rate on savings accounts. The savings accounts offered by the Payment Banks would be of 3 types: Regular Savings Account, Digital Savings Account, and Basic Savings Account. All three types of savings accounts will offer the same interest rate.
The deposits of maximum 1 lakh would be acceptable by the payment banks, and the payment banks will also offer third-party products in alliance with other financial services.
Savings and current accounts, money transfer, direct benefit transfers, bill and utility payments, and enterprise and merchant payments, are some of the facilities that India Post Payments Bank will offer through various mediums like counter services, micro-ATM, mobile banking app, SMS and IVR.
India Post Payments Bank will also offer RTGS, IMPS and NEFT services for transfer of funds.