Prime Minister Narendra Modi is launching India Post Payments Bank, IPPB, at 3.15 pm. Some of the interesting facts.
1. It will be the newest player in payment space crowded by behemoths like Airtel Payments Bank and Paytm Payments Bank.
2. IPPB will have 650 branches and 3250 access points operational today at the time of launch.
3. 155,000 post office branches will be linked and operational by 31 December, 2018.
4. IPPB will be fully owned by the State. The budget for IPPB will be increased from 800 crores to 1435 crores.
5. IPPB will offer 4% interest on savings account and will take deposits upto 1 lakh in the accounts of individuals and small businesses.
6. IPPB will not extend loans. But they will tie up with third parties to extend other products. For example, they will tie up with Punjab National Bank to extend loans.
7. IPPB will offer a range of products such as savings and current accounts, money transfer, direct benefit transfers, bill and utility payments, and enterprise and merchant payments.
8. IPPB has been allowed to link around 17 crore postal savings bank accounts with its accounts. This will create a large base of existing customers for jumpstarting the operations.
9. 300,000 postmen and other employees will double as payment bank employees that will transform the moribund operations of post offices that was becoming a white elephant and a burden to exchequer.
10. This will be one of the largest exercises done by the present government on the lines of Jan Dhan Yojana, Demonetisation, GST and DBT touching almost 80% of the population.
