IPPB to offer doorstep banking

• 650 branches across the country are set to open soon
• Kurnool Postal region to get nine branches
• 3 lakh postmen, GDS to provide doorstep services
• With QR cards, customers can make any transactions

Tirupati: India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) is all set to take banking services in the country to the next level by facilitating services at the doorstep of people even at remote places.

To remove the barriers for unbanked and underbanked population, department of Posts has come up with the idea of the IPPB which they expect will give a major fillip to rural banking in particular and obviously becomes a biggest banking network in future with its vast network from grassroots level.

While IPPB launched its operations on January 30, 2017 in the country by opening two branches at Raipur and Ranchi. Though the first branch of IPPB in South India was supposed to be opened at Chittoor almost a year ago but was postponed due to various reasons.

Now, the department of Posts has geared up to open 650 branches on the same day across the country out of which nine would be in Kurnool region.

Arrangements have been made to open IPPBs at Tirupati, Chittoor, Kadapa, Proddatur, Anantapur, Hindupur, Kurnool, Nandyal and Markapuram of Prakasam district which falls in Kurnool region.

In fact, all the 650 branches are slated for inauguration on August 21, but the event was deferred due to the mourning period following the demise of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

IPPB would offer a range of products such as savings and current accounts, remittances and money transfer, direct benefit transfers, bill and utility payments among other things.

But, it would not provide advances to customers, who can utilise their other services through counters, micro ATM, mobile banking APP, SMS and IVR, said a senior official of India Posts.

The biggest advantage of IPPB lies in the fact that it has a vast network of about 1.55 lakh post offices across the country with 80 per cent rural penetration, which is nearly 2.5 times the number of bank branches in rural India.

It also has a large work force of more than 3 lakh postmen and Gramin Dak Seavaks (GDS) who are the last mile delivery agents offer assisted doorstep banking in rural, urban and remote areas.

The official on condition of anonymity told The Hans India that, the banking in IPPB is very simple as it opens paperless accounts in minutes using Aadhaar and mobile number to enable the customers make digital transactions with the help of QR cards and biometric authentication for which no photo or other documents are required.

IPPB officials would give QR code scanners to all business establishments and people having QR codes can make hassle free shopping and pay the bill through QR codes and biometric system which attracts no additional charges. With the QR code customers need not remember the account number or PIN.

Even there is no need to keep minimum balance in the account and no penalties in this regard will be levied unlike the commercial banks.

If any customer wants money from their account, they can simply send an SMS and the postman will deliver the required amount at their doorstep. However, doorstep delivery services would attract some charges, which are to be finalised.

The postmen and GDS would be equipped with smartphones and biometric device to offer doorstep banking services and providing training to them in phased manner.

Any post office savings bank account holder would be able to avail additional services provided by IPPB by linking accounts. IPPB account can be linked to Direct Benefit Transfer facility and get the benefits being extended by State and Central governments directly to their accounts.

Above all, the savings bank accounts would give four percent interest, which is more than what commercial banks offer.