Communication Minister Manoj Sinha has said that over 24 companies have approached the Department of Posts for collaboration with India Posts Payment Bank.
The minister stated this in reply to a question raised in the Rajya Sabha, reported the India Today.
“While the department is in various stages of discussions with them, the decision on formal partnerships will be taken after carefully evaluating the entire value proposition that they propose for the common man,” Sinha said.
Last year, India Post Payments Bank had launched its two branches in Raipur, Chhattisgarh and Ranchi, Jharkhand with basic products and banking services in partnership with Punjab National Bank (PNB).
Some of the banks and non-banking companies that have shown interest to partner with India Post Payments Bank are YES Bank, Union Bank, State Bank of India, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, HSBC and Royal Sundaram.
The payments banks are different from regular banks and are not allowed to undertake any lending activities directly.
They can accept demand deposits only that is savings and current accounts and will initially be restricted to holding a maximum balance of Rs 1,00,000 per individual customer.
Following the Reserve Bank of India guidelines for licensing of payments banks, it cannot accept Non-Resident Indian deposits. Payment banks cannot set up subsidiaries to undertake non-banking financial services.
