India Post Payments Bank: Benefits for PO Account Holders after IPPB?

PM Narendra Modi has initiated with yet another scheme, India Post Payments Bank on September 1, 2018 as an effort to improve financial inclusion in the rural areas,

Under this scheme, the government aims to provide doorstep banking services to the customers.  Here, in this article, we have mentioned the benefits that an existing and new PO saving scheme holders will get from this scheme.

India Post Payments Bank – Doorstep banking services

With an aim to encourage new age banking services and payment instruments, IPPB plans to offer following doorstep services for new and existing customers

• Account opening
• Cash withdrawal
• Money Transfer
• Utility Payment services
• Insurance Payment services
• Loan repayment services
• Other account related services like updating of PAN no/nomination details
• Account statement
• Issuance of standing instruction to the banks
• QR Card issuance

A single mobile app can let you to access all the services- The customers can get an access to an array of services of India Post Payments Bank Scheme using the mobile app. Initially, the app will offer limited services but once the customers comply with KYC norms,he/she can get access to the most of the services.

Offline transaction with QR codes- The customers of IPPB will be easily able to do offline transactions using QR codes using Aadhar based biometric identification.

Customers can easily keep zero balance account- In this bank account, the account holder will not be provided with the services like atm or debit cards, which will ultimately reduce the cost of the bank and the bankers would able to offer zero balance accounts easily.

Customers can do cashless transaction- The absence of a debit card will not hinder the customers from doing the cashless transaction using bank’s QR code card. This card will be accepted by the small merchants too.

Digital Payment Counters- IPPB will also accept digital payments from the counters, offer other small savings like National Saving Certificate, Kisan Vikas Patra and Public Provident Fund.

Is this different from Post office saving scheme?

Though both schemes are targeted to push the rural economy, but there are several benefits that IPPB scheme has over the traditional POSA (Post Office Saving Scheme)  scheme. For example, in POSA scheme, the minimum deposit required to open the account is Rs 20 and for IPPB scheme the minimum balance is zero.

The Account holders need to maintain a minimum balance of Rs 500 in POSA scheme, while the same is not true for the latter.  Last but not the least; in IPPB the depositor cannot deposit more than Rs 1 lakh under this scheme, the same is not true in case of POSA.

This scheme will definitely march out the traditional accounts operated in our economy. What do you think?