The much-awaited India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) will be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 1 with at least one branch in every district and focus on financial services in rural areas, a PTI report said.

The launch of IPPB was recently rescheduled in the wake of seven-day national mourning declared after the demise of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It was scheduled for 21 August. The IPPB will leverage the reach of 1.55 lakh post office branches with payment bank facilities to provide banking and financial service to people in rural areas, creating the country's largest banking network with a direct presence at village level.

In an earlier statement, IPPB CEO Suresh Sethi said that IPPB will go live with 650 branches in addition to 3,250 access points co-located at post offices and around 11,000 postmen both in rural and urban areas will provide doorstep banking services. IPPB has permission to link around 17-crore postal savings bank (PSB) accounts with its account.

When IPPB is successfully in place, people living in rural areas will be able to avail digital banking and financial services, including money transfer, to any bank account either with help of the mobile app or by visiting a post office.

With the third party tie-ups, account holders in IPPB will be able to avail financial services as in the case of a regular banking customer. The payment bank will be used by the government to distribute NREGA wages, subsidies, pension etc. The IPPB app which is expected to be launched on the same day will enable customers to pay for services of around 100 firms including phone recharges and bill, electricity bill, DTH service, college fees etc that are present on Bharat Bill payments system of National Payments Corporation of India.

IPPB is the third entity to receive payments bank permit after Airtel and PayTm.