Wednesday, March 23, 2016

INDIA POSTS TO LAUNCH PAYMENTS BANK BY MARCH NEXT YR: PRASAD

New Delhi, March 22

The Department of Posts is likely to start the operations of its payments bank next year with an in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India in place, Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said today.

Speaking at an industry function, the minister said, “Very soon by March next year we are going to bring in payments bank of the Postal Department. We have just got in-principle approval and we are going to the Cabinet soon”.

As many as 60 international consortiums were keen to partner India Post for third partner delivery for insurance and banking, among others, the minister said while adding that India Post has the largest network of core-banking solution branches in India.

“When I became minister (2014), just 230 India Post branches had core-banking solutions and as of yesterday 20,494 post offices have come under core-banking solutions out of 25,000 and we can complete it by April,” he said.

“Today I am proud to announce that core-banking linkage of post offices is bigger than State Bank of India. SBI has 16,333 core-banking solution branches,” he added.

India Posts received in-principle approval from RBI on September 7 for setting up of payments bank within 18 months.

The India Post banks may offer a host of services which may include distribution of third party financial products such as insurance, mutual funds and pension products, give access to formal credit products by acting as banking correspondents of banks and facilitate utility bill payments for electricity, water, telephone, gas etc.

The minister also said total investments in electronics manufacturing sector in India had crossed Rs 1.28 lakh crore.

“When our government came (in 2014), the total investment in electronics manufacturing was around Rs 11,700 crore and as of two days ago it is Rs 1,28,000 crore plus,” Prasad said.

Prasad said India is fast adopting technology and the country is likely to have half a billion internet users by the end of this year.

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