He said the proposed India Post payments bank will have immense potential to sell third party product and services.
"We are going to start the postal payments bank by March 2017. Very soon
we will go to the Cabinet and postal payments bank will become
operational from March 2017," Prasad told reporters here.
He said the proposed India Post payments bank will have immense
potential to sell third party product and services. About 50 companies,
including some from abroad, are keen to partner with postal department
for the payments bank, like World Bank, Citi from America, Barclay's
from England, he said.
Reacting to a query, he said these institutions will offer third party
services like insurance products, mutual funds, banking instruments and a
variety of financial instruments. Asked on the interest shown by these
institutions, the minister said, "...that board will decide, I'm only
saying value addition of postal department it is attracting so much
global attention." "...they will decide how much to give them. It is a
call they will take," he said.
The payments bank of postal department will become a big platform of
financial inclusion, Prasad said. "We are going to invest about Rs 800
crore -- Rs 400 crore will be invested by the department and the
remaining amount will be equity part (mobilised as equity)," he said.
"Postal department has the widest network in India. We have 1,54,939
post offices in the country, out of that 25,560 are departmental post
offices and 1,29,379 are branch post offices," he said.
"Under (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi, we have decided to re-energise
the postal department for India's growth and financial inclusion," he
further said. In August 2015, the RBI had given in-principle approval to
11 entities to start payments bank, including the postal department.
The approval is valid for 18 months and all the entities are required to
submit a detailed business plan after which they shall be given the
final nod.
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