India Post to offer Net banking facility soon

India Post is on a technology upgradation mode to provide a host of financial services to the public, besides strengthening its hold on the logistics sector.

As part of its strategy to get closer to people and make India Post one stop shop for logistics and financial services, including banking and insurance, it plans to provide internet banking facility shortly, reveals its Senior superintendent of Ongole postal division T.A.V. Sarma.

“The online banking facility is presently available to its agents who can generate token number on their own online and transact on behalf of their customers,” he says in a conversation with The Hindu here.

“The facility will be provided to all account holders in a month or two after setting right teething troubles so that the account holders can log into indiapost.gov.in and transact without any hassles,” he adds.

In Ongole division, all the 98 post offices have migrated to the Core Banking Solutions (CBS) to offer a host of insurance products and banking services real-time, he explains.

All savings bank account holders will be provided with Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards to avoid the unpleasant practice of standing in long queues to transact, he says.

All post offices in the division are provided with sufficient number of ATM cards to cover pensioners and other savings bank account holders and make ATMs the preferred mode of transaction by customers from any India post ATMs from anywhere in the country.

Negotiations are on at the highest level for setting up Post Bank of India and also enable its account holders to withdraw money from any public or private bank ATMs soon with ATM cards issued by the department, he says.

The department has so far set up five ATMs in the division. “More ATMs will be rolled out in the coming months,” he says.

Customers can now track the postal articles from the time of booking to delivery by just giving the details of the mobile numbers of themselves and that of the receivers.

Purchasing stamps online

They can also purchase stamps online from the e-post office by registering on the portal epostoffice.gov.in and also download android app to transact with their mobile phones.