Shri Piyush Goyal congratulated the DoP and IPPB for their tremendous efforts in spreading the activities of the bank. Speaking at a special function organized to mark completion of two years of IPPB since its pilot launch, he said that by leveraging all 1.55 lakh Post offices across the country, IPPB would be able to provide banking services to the last man in the rural and remote areas and help realizing the dream of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi of economic transformation and creation of New India with all-encompassing financial inclusion.
India Posts Payment bank is a Modi government initiative with an aim to provide banking facilities for the most disconnected rural sector. It aims to utilize all of India’s 155,015 post offices as access points and 300,000 postal service workers to provide house to house banking services.
So far IPPB has rolled out 1.25 lakhs access points across the country. Approximately 1.10 lakh of these Access Points are located in the rural areas. It is fastest Access Points ramp up in banking history with the average rate of over 800 Access Points per day. The number of Access Points of IPPB is nearly twice the number of bank branches in rural India until recently.
In a major boost to financial inclusion in the country, the IPPB has become the largest bank in terms of reach and network in realization of its objective of being the most accessible, affordable and trusted bank for the common man. In its quest to remove the barriers for the unbanked and under-banked population, the IPPB has made banking and payments simple while taking them to the doorsteps of customers. Using Aadhaar, it is opening paperless DBT accounts in minutes.
The innovative deployment of the QR card and use of biometric authentication enables bill payments, remittances as well as deposit and withdrawals with ease even by those without smart phones.
In a large digital literacy program, more than 2.5 lakhs last mile delivery agents (Postman, GDS) have been trained and certified to provide door step banking services and promoting financial literacy in the rural areas. Equipped with a smart phone and biometric device, these agents of IPPB have redefined accessibility and availability of digital financial services at the last mile.
Leveraging these strengths, the IPPB in partnership with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has pioneered the assisted UPI which allows on-boarding of people without phones on the world’s fastest growing payments platform.
Since its launch, IPPB has seen good adoption of its services. Over 30 lakh customers have opened savings accounts and are availing banking services like money transfer, bill payments, cash deposits and withdrawal at their doorstep. Further, almost 1 lakh Post Office Savings Account (POSA) holders have linked their old post office accounts with IPPB to enjoy interoperable banking services through channels like mobile banking, doorstep banking, SMS and IVR which were not available to them earlier.
More than 8 lakh customers have downloaded IPPB Mobile Banking App and are now equipped for self-service digital banking transactions. The IPPB customers have, in a short span of four months, made over 21 lakhs transactions valuing in excess of Rs. 800 crores. More than 1.5 lakh bill payments have also been processed by IPPB.
As a part of its strategy to promote a less cash economy and deepen the digital payments ecosystem, the IPPB has enabled digital payment through a simple QR code at more than 10000 Post Office Counters. Nearly 25000 customers have made digital payments worth Rs. 13 Crores through IPPB for their investments in PPF/ RD /Sunkaya Samriddhi Yojana in the last 3 months, without having to visit the post office.