Centurion Bank of Punjab to provide forex svc through post offices

Kolkata, Apr 15 (UNI) Foreign exchange services will now be available in major post offices in the city after India Post and Centurion Bank of Punjab today signed a deal to provide foreign exchange services in India.

The deal, signed in New Delhi, was the first of its kind in which the post offices were entering the foreign exchange services market through this partnership.

Centurion Bank and India Post had decided to launch a pilot project to offer Forex services from the India Post's divisions.

India Post has a Full Fledged Money Changing (FFMC) license which authorises the post offices to undertake money changing business.

These services will be available in 31 head post offices of 11 states.

'' After the successful launch in Delhi we are to launch the Foreign Exchange Services in Kolkata as a part of expanding the services nationally, '' Bank and post office sources said.

'' The India Post tie-up is a pilot project by the Bank and we will determine the customer response to launch such bureau in other parts of the country, '' they said.

Foreign Exchange sector is one of the fastest growing segments in the country and the current market size of travel-related foreign exchange in India exceeds Rs 66,000 crore.

With the growth of Tourism industry, the need for easy availability of foreign exchange was increasing.

With a network of more than 1,55,000 post offices, Department of Posts had ventured to provide these facilities with the help of Centurion Bank of Punjab, they added.

UNI PC SJC RL HT1917