India Post Payment Bank to offer loans, MFs, insurance via 3rd party

New Delhi: Come August 21 and the country would get 650 branches of much awaited India Postal Payment Bank (IPPB). With the opening of Postal Payment bank branches in every district, it would become the first payment bank with over 1.5 lakh access points across the country out of which about 1.3 lakh will be in rural areas.

Apart from providing the facilities of availability of cash at the doorstep, the Postal Payment would also offer loans, mutual funds and insurance policies to its customers. The IPPB would forge third party tie-up with banks and other financial companies for providing loans, insurance, etc facilities.

According to official sources, the Postal Payments Bank has partnered with Punjab National Bank and Bajaj Allianz to offer loans, mutual funds and insurance and looking for more partners.

"All 1.55 lakh post office branches will be linked to IPPB by the end of this year. There are 1.3 lakh post offices in the rural area that have the direct reach to neighbouring villages. With these rural post office branches, IPPB services will be made available across all villages in the country," the sources said, adding that two branches of IPPB are already operational on a pilot basis in Raipur and Ranchi.

"The IPPB would provide the facilities of both savings bank account as well as current accounts and the deposit limit of both categories of accounts would be Rs 1 lakh. It would also facilitate money transfer to other bank accounts, among other services. However, they cannot offer loans, or issue credit cards," the sources said.

To overcome the limitation of Rs 1 lakh deposit limit, IPPB has received permission to link around 17 crore post office saving banks (POSB) account.

"With this whenever deposit in IPPB account exceeds Rs 1 lakh, it can be transferred to POSB. There are a total of 37 crore different types of accounts at post offices which will be linked to IPPB gradually," the sources said.

"The IPPB would also provide doorstep banking services, which would be chargeable. The ministry has not yet decided as what would be the charges for doorstep services," an official said, adding that it would very nominal.