Department of Posts has started inter-ministerial
consultations for seeking Cabinet approval on around Rs 1,900 crore fund
requirement to start Post Banks in the country."DoP will need around Rs 1,900 crore to start Post
Banks in the country. This includes Rs 500 crore paid-up capital required under
new banking licence guidelines and rest is for other capital adequacy norms
that Post Banks will need to fulfil. Cabinet note has gone to various
ministries to seek their views," a government official told PTI.
The Department of Posts (DoP) has plans to apply for
banking licence to offer full-fledged banking services along with postal
services through post offices.The RBI has issued comprehensive guidelines for new bank
licences. It has fixed July 1 as the last date for filing application by
interested entities.The DoP has proposed to start 50 bank branches in the
first year and scale it to a total of 150 branched in 5 years.There are around 90,000 bank branches in the country and
provision of real-time banking services through postal network is estimated to
triple the current banking network.Finance Minister P Chidambaram in this year's Budget
speech said Post offices will become part of the core banking solution ( CBS)
and offer real time banking services. He proposed provision of Rs 532 crore for
the project in 2013-14.
The Post Banks are proposed to be owned by DoP but with a
completely independent board, governance structure and operations. It will have
representation from Ministries of Finance and Communication & IT.
"The branches in first phase will be opened in tier
1 to even very small cities with foucs on rural and retail micro, small and
medium enterprises," the official said.India postal network has 1,54,822 post offices in the
country. Of these, 1,39,086 are in rural areas and 15,736 are in urban regions.
Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com
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