‘Payments bank, a historic opportunity for India Post’.

“Trust me ladies and gentlemen, India Post will soon be a force to reckon with. Until now we (India Post) were seen as a slumbering giant. Not anymore. We have woken up. This time we are not going to give it up, as payments bank presents a historic opportunity for India Post.”

So said MS Ramanujan, Member (Banking & HRD), Department of Posts, at the 3rd Financial Inclusion symposium organised by dun & bradstreet, exuding confidence about India Post regaining its spot under the sun.

“It’s very exciting for us as the payments industry is going to be like skating on thin ice. We don’t know who will fall by the wayside, when there will be a bloodbath, and what kind of pricing/revenue models will emerge,” he said, adding that this will be a game of high volumes and wafer-thin margins.

India Post is among the 11 successful applicants that recently got in-principle nod for a payments bank licence from the Reserve Bank of India.

The new entity will be registered as a company and will be called ‘India Post Payments Bank’. It will have an initial capital of ₹300 crore, much more than the minimum of ₹100 crore stipulated by the RBI.

“We will soon approach the Cabinet for approval,” Ramanujan told BusinessLine here.

Types of payments

The bank will undertake the following types of payments: P2P (people to people) — involving, say, remittances; C2G (citizen to government) — taxes, duties, levies, and so forth; C2B (customer to bank) — e-commerce-related payments, among others; and G2C (government to citizen) — such as direct benefits transfer payments.

One thing is certain — India Post will fully leverage the existing postal network (technology, personnel, etc) for its payments bank foray. However, the bank will have a separate logo.

As on date, nearly 7,000 full-services branches of the postal department are under core banking solution (CBS). By March-end 2016, all the 25,000 full-services branches of India Post will be under CBS, Ramanujan said.

(Courtesy:hindubusinessline. This article was published on October 15, 2015) 

India Post shortlists 6 consultants for payments bank foray

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 20:

 

 

The country’s largest postal service provider, India Post, is expected to float a request for proposal this week to select a consultant for its Postal Bank that is expected to be formed by December.

India Post has shortlisted six consultants, including EY, KPMG and McKinsey, from which it will select one firm to take care of consultancy work for the payments bank foray, a senior government official toldBusinessLine. “The firms were shortlisted on October 15. The name of the one selected will go to the Public Investment Board (PIB) for approval. Then the PIB will make recommendations to the Cabinet,” a government official said.

The official said the whole project will go for Cabinet approval in November (early next month). Once that approval comes through, the company (Postal Bank) is expected to be registered as a public company in December. India Post is among the 11 successful applicants that recently got in-principle nod for payments bank licence from the Reserve Bank of India. The new registered company will be called India Post Payments Bank and will have an initial capital of ₹300 crore, higher than the minimum ₹100 crore stipulated by the RBI. The company will be based on a revenue-share model.

Once the company is set up, India Post will fully leverage the existing postal network (technology, personnel, etc) for its payments bank foray with a separate logo. The bank will undertake the following types of payments: P2P (people to people) — involving, say, remittances; C2G (citizen to government) — taxes, duties, levies, and so forth; C2B (customer to bank) — e-commerce-related payments, among others; and G2C (government to citizen) — such as direct benefits transfer payments.

(Courtesy:hindu business line. This article was published on October 20, 2015)