MUMBAI: Even as its application to start a commercial bank is pending, India
Post has drawn a massive plan to install as many as 3,000 ATMs
and 1.35 lakh micro-ATMs at the ubiquitous post offices across the country for
savings account holders by September 2015, a top official has said.
"We
will be starting with three ATMs to be installed in New Delhi, Chennai and
Bangalore on February 5 and then ramp it up gradually," postal department
secretary Padmini Gopinath
told a select group of
reporters here over the weekend.
She
said 1,000 ATMs with the India Post branding will be put in within the first
year, which will be ramped up massively to 3,000 in the next 18 months.
To
start with, the ATMs can be used only by 26 crore savings account-holders who
save with the postal department, but Gopinath exuded confidence that within six
months of the launch, they will get the interoperability permission from the
Reserve Bank.
Postal
savings are worth around Rs 6.05 trillion, which is half the savings in the
largest lender SBI and more than double that of the largest private sector
lender ICICI Bank.
Through
interoperability, India Post will join the National Financial Switch, which
will benefit India Post account holders to transact at the banks' ATMs and vice
versa, she added.
India
Post has been working with software major Infosys on this project, she added.
The
micro ATMs will be handheld devices to be operated at the post office level
while the ATM will be similar to the one operated by any commercial bank,
she added.
The postal
department, which has 1.55 lakh post offices over 90 per cent of which are in
villages, offers the savings account to people across the country and pays an
interest of 4 per cent per annum for such deposits. The account offers cheque
facility at present.
It can
be noted that the Department of Posts is fighting a very contentious battle to
convert itself into a full fledged bank, asserting that its reach can help
achieve the goal of financial inclusion.
However,
the finance ministry has expressed some reservations about the idea, while
Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal has exuded confidence of winning over his Cabinet
colleagues to get the go ahead for the 'Postal Bank'.
source:The Economic Times