Shillong GPO chosen as new payment bank of India Post

SHILLONG: The Shillong GPO will be among one of the 50 ‘payments banks’ of India Post slated to come up across the country.
The Director Postal Services, NER, office of CPMG said here on Thursday that the head offices or GPOs will function as payments bank while all sub post offices can avail the services.
Besides Shillong, Agartala and Imphal will be the other two centres in NE.
He further informed that these banks will provide online transactions at par with other such players in the market.
The official said that the biggest advantage of India Post was its robust network and rural penetration.
India Post has been given license by the RBI along with other players like Paytm and Airtel money to run payments bank, since the post offices are functioning as an agency to execute the schemes of Union Ministry of Finance by way of collecting investors’ money and deposit them to the consolidated fund of India.
He said that the other reason for choosing India Post is that the post offices are providing services like banks while clarifying that payments bank cannot give loan and a customer account can have a maximum deposit of only one lakh.
The three head post offices chosen in the region have been set an operational target of March 31.
Meanwhile, on the past internet link failure at Shillong GPO and its sub post office, the official informed that speed and service has improved now with higher band with and staff training.