India Post sets up 22 IPPB branches in Punjab: Chief Post Master

As the postal department set to launch its payments bank on Saturday, a total of 22 branches in Punjab would be opened to take digital banking to the doorstep of people, a senior official said today.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate the services of India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) to the nation on September 1 at a national launch function in New Delhi. He said that IPPB will go live with 650 branches in addition to 3,250 access points co-located at post offices.

"..With physical presence across 1.55 lakh post offices across the country, the reach of the 'Dakiya' or postman, IPPB aims at becoming a powerful and effective vehicle of real financial inclusion in the country...Postman will also be seen as a banker in your streets now," Anil Kumar, Chief Postmaster General, Punjab Circle, told a news conference here today.

The launch of IPPB had been rescheduled for September 1 from August 21 earlier in the wake of seven-day national mourning declared after the demise of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The IPPB initially on its launch will provide services customers in Punjab and Chandigarh through 23 IPPB branches and 115 offices of the Department of Posts in the state, he said.

The Department of Posts, which is the oldest and the largest financial service provider in the country, will through IPPB initiative, offer a slew of services to its customers including banking at doorstep.

"It will help create a national payments architecture riding on a modern payments platform.

"It will be one stop financial service provider reaching out to the unbanked and the under-banked and extending the financial services offerings which include services like savings account, current accounts, in-store payments, bill payments, doorstep services through branch premises, assisted agents and mobile/internet banking," he said.

Kumar said that the launch of IPPB will double retail banking infrastructure in the country and provide an unprecedented impetus to digital payments.

IPPB will leverage reach of 1.55 lakh post office branches to provide banking and financial service to people, with emphasis being the rural areas, he said.

The state government will also benefit from the IPPB.

"It is a vibrant platform for on-boarding of mandis, cooperative dairies, fertiliser dealers, etc on the IPPB platform besides considering delivery of Direct Benefit Transfer through it," he said.

"The IPPB will not provide physical ATM cards to its customers but will offer QR cards, which carry a bar code for taking up any transactions at all channels of IPPB," he said.

Department of Posts has a base of approximately 40 crore accounts and a deposit balance of approximately Rs 5 lakh crore, it was informed at the news conference here.