Hitachi keen to partner postal dept for payment bank: Prasad

IT Minister also meets Google CEO Sundar Pichai, discusses 'Internet Saathi' project to train women in 300,000 villages

Japanese firm Hitachi has expressed interest to partner with India Posts for their Payments Bank venture.

Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today said a pilot project would be undertaken to explore such a tie-up.

Yutaka Saito, President and CEO of IT Systems, Hitachi Ltd, met Prasad to discuss about the possibility of Hitachi offering its banking solutions in a revenue sharing model to the Postal Department.

"They have already met the officials in postal department. I have asked them to make elaborate presentations. They have come with the idea of revenue sharing model to install the banking solutions in all the post offices in India. We will consider it," Prasad said after the meeting.

Hitachi payment services offer banking solutions related to ATM, point of sale (POS), cash and deposit machines and card management solutions to all the leading banks of the country.

"They are very keen to parter with Postal Department for payment bank solutions in the vast network of India's postal operations across the country and in rural areas," Prasad said.

We also need to technically upgrade our rural post offices to make payment bank a success.

"With Digital India opening up in India in a big way, there is enough scope for products, marketing, consumer base and above all innovation," he added.

Prasad meets Google CEO

Prasad also met Google CEO Sundar Pichai in the evening.

After the meeting, the minister said "Google's idea of 'Internet Saathi' whereby they want to reach about 300,000 villages of India, to train women in particular through their mobile Internet is a good step. I have directed my IT department to let CSCs (common service centers) spread 'Internet Saathi' for training, in the rural parts of India."

Some issues of security, and harmony with the department of Civil Aviation has to be done for the Project Loon, we will soon finalise that. But surely, we are quite open to the idea of their project Loon to undertake it on a pilot basis, Prasad said.

Google has also proposed to partner with BSNL for this pilot project. We have have directed Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg to coordinate with the Defence security agencies and expedite this process, he said.

Pichai said, "The Minister has talked working together in the rural BPOs. We are very excited on how we can work together in partnering Internet Saathi along with the CSCs and we are focused on Google products to bring more Indian languages and top Indian languages so that we can reach to Indian users."