What is India Post Payments Bank?

New Delhi, Sep 1: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) that will significantly augment the reach and impact of the banking sector in the country.

Finance Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley and Minister of Communications Shri Manoj Sinha had launched the operations of the India Post Payments Bank on 30th January in 2017 as two pilot branches at Raipur and Ranchi through video conferencing from Delhi.

What is India Post Payments Bank?

• The trusted Postman will now become a banker to millions of unbanked and under-banked Indians who have so far had no access to financial services. This launch will more than double the number of bank branches in the country - from the present 1.40 lakhs to more than 2.90 lakhs.
• Similarly, the number of rural branches in the country will increase from the current 49,000 to more than 1.75 lakhs.
• will significantly augment the reach and impact of the banking sector in the country.
• The vision of IPPB is to build the most accessible, affordable and trusted bank for the common man, to spearhead the financial inclusion agenda of the Government.
• It will leverage the vast network of the Department of Posts, which covers every corner of the country with more than 300,000 Postmen and Grameen Dak Sewaks. This will enable IPPB to bridge the last-mile gap in banking services.

• IPPB will have 650 Branches and 3250 Access Points spread across the country.
• The bank will offer a range of products such as savings and current accounts, money transfer, direct benefit transfers, bill and utility payments, and enterprise and merchant payments.
• These products, and related services, will be offered across multiple channels (counter services, micro-ATM, mobile banking app, SMS and IVR), using the bank's state-of-the-art technology platform.
• All the 1.55 lakh Post Offices in the country will be linked to the IPPB system by December 31, 2018.