'India Post Payment Bank' Wants To Convert Itself To Universal Bank: CEO

India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) wants to convert itself to a universal bank as the vast network of post office branches would help in achieving financial inclusion, its MD and CEO J Venkatramu said on Tuesday. He said when the IPPB started operations in 2018, 80 per cent of the transactions would happen in cash. However, with technology adoption, presently only 20 per cent of the transaction happens in cash and 80 per cent digitally.

"Given the network of post offices, probably we fit the bill in terms of being the institution which can reach every nook and corner. If we get a full-fledged banking licence, especially for financial inclusion, that will help us serve larger goals," Venkatramu said at a CII event here. He was replying to a question about the bank approaching the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a universal bank licence. He said credit is an important facet of financial inclusion as well as social upliftment, the vast network of post offices could help in financial inclusion and extending credit.

As a payment bank under the RBI, IPPB can extend services of deposits, remittances, internet banking and other specified services, but they cannot give loans or issue credit cards. IPPB was incorporated on August 17, 2016, under the Companies Act, 2013 as a public limited company with 100 per cent government of India equity under the Department of Posts. Speaking at the event, Secretary of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Anurag Jain emphasised the importance of a "very" properly designed ecosystem for the redressal of customer grievances.

"There could be a problem say 0.1 per cent of the transactions or 0.01 per cent but that will also add to a huge number of transactions and the person who has lost the money... For you (payment banks) it may be statistics... but the person who has lost the money, for him it is a problem," Jain said. Speaking at a separate session, Special secretary in the DPIIT Sumita Dawra said that good results have started coming in on PM GatiShakti initiative, be it the railways, or the movement of coal through both rail and ports.

"For last mile connectivity alone, in the recent most budget, 100 last mile connectivity projects, which were identified on the PM GatiShakti portal, have been allocated Rs 75,000 crore," she said adding "we have put together a services improvement group, which is an inter-ministerial which includes our colleagues from customs, DGFT (directorate general of foreign trade) and all infrastructure ministries".

(PTI)